UNIVERSITY   CF  CaL,/-ORNIA,   SAN  DIEGO 
LA  JOLLA,  CALIFORNIA 


4^  S^ 


9f^ 


3  1822  00639  6584        .SS'ff 


OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 


OUR  PART  IN 
THE  GREAT  WAR 


BY 


ARTHUR     GLEASON 

AUTHOR   OF  "young  HILDA  AT  THE  WARS,"   "THE  SPIRIT 
OF  CHRISTMAS,"  "LOVE,  HOME  AND  THE  INNER  LIFE,"  ETC. 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS 


NEW   YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  igif,  by 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company 


AU  rights  reserved,  including  that  of  translation 
into  foreign  languages 


Leon   Mirman,  the  Governor  of  Meurthe-et-Moselle,   and 
the  refugees  for  whom  he  cares. 


To 

FRANCE  ON  JULY  14TH 

Three  years  of  world  war  draw  to  a  close^  as 
France  prepares  to  celebrate  the  birthday  of  her  lib- 
erty. Never  in  the  thousand  years  of  her  tumultuous 
history  has  she  been  so  calm^  so  sure  of  the  path  she 
treads^  red  with  the  blood  of  her  young  men.  She 
has  never  drunk  any  cup  of  joy  so  deeply  as  this 
cup  of  her  agony.  In  the  early  months  of  the  war^ 
there  were  doubts  and  dismays^  and  the  cheap  talk  of 
compromise.  There  were  black  days  and  black 
moods.,  and  a  swaying  indecision.  But  under  the 
immense  pressure  of  crisis,  France  has  lifted  to  a 
clear  determination.  This  war  will  be  fought  to  a 
finish.  No  feeble  dreams  of  peace.,  entertained  by 
loose  thinkers  and  fluent  phrase  makers,  no  easy  con- 
ciliations, will  be  tolerated.  France  has  7nade  her 
sacrifice.  It  remains  now  that  it  shall  avail.  She 
will  fulfill  her  destiny.  Tjme  has  ceased  to  matter. 
Death  is  only  an  incident  in  the  ongoing  of  the 
natzon.  No  tortures  by  mutilation,  no  horrors  of 
shell  fire,  no  massing  of  machine  guns,  can  swerve 

V 


vi  TO  FRANCE  ON  JULY  14TH 

the  united  will.  The  ''Sacred  Union"  of  Socialist 
and  royalist,  peasant  and  politician,  is  firm  to  endure. 
The  egoisms  and  bickerings  of  easy  untested  years 
have  been  drowned  in  a  tide  that  sets  towards  the 
Rhitie.  The  pre?nier  race  of  the  world  goes  forth  to 
war.  That  war  is  only  in  its  beginning.  The  toll 
of  the  dead  and  the  wounded  may  be  doubled  before 
the  gray  lines  are  broken.  But  they  will  be  broken. 
A  menace  is  to  be  removed  for  all  time.  The  German 
E?npire  is  not  to  rule  in  Paris.  Atrocities  are  not  to 
be  justified  by  success.  Spying  will  be  no  longer 
the  basis  of  international  relationship.  France  faces 
in  one  direction.  She  waits  in  arms  at  Revigny  and 
along  the  water  courses  of  the  North  for  the  machine 
/  to  crack.  That  consum?nation  of  the  long  watch 
/     ffiay  be  nearer  than  we  guess.     It  may  be  many 

itnonths  removed.  It  does  not  matter.  France  waits 
.  in  unshattered  line,  reserve  on  reserve,  ready  to  the 
^    call. 

Only  once  or  twice  in  history  has  the  world  wit- 
nessed such  a  spectacle  of  greatness  at  tension.    It  is 
I  not  that  factories  are  busy  on  shells.    It  is  that  every- 
i   thing  spiritual  in  a  race  touched  with  genius  has  been_ 
mobilized.    F^ineness  of  feeling,  the  graces  of  the  in- 
{  Jelled,  clarity  of  thought,  all  the  playful  tender 
I    elements  of  worthy  living  are  burning  with  a  steady 
\  light. 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

The  author  was  enabled  to  visit  Verdun  and  the 
peasant  district,  and  to  obtain  access  to  the  German 
diaries  through  J.  J.  Jusserand,  Ambassador  of 
France ;  Frank  H.  Simonds,  editor  of  the  New  York 
Tribune,  and  Theodore  Roosevelt,  by  whose  cour- 
tesy the  success  of  the  three  months'  visit  was  as- 
sured. On  arrival  in  France  the  courtesy  was  con- 
tinued by  Emile  Hovelaque,  Madame  Saint-Rene 
Taillandier,  Judge  Walter  Berry,  Mrs.  Charles 
Prince,  Leon  Mirman,  Prefet  de  Meurthe-et-Mo- 
selle,  the  Foreign  Office  and  the  Ministry  of  War. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

To  France  on  July  14TH v 

SECTION    I 

AMERICANS   WHO   HELPED 

I.     The  Two   Americas 3 

II.     The  American  Ambulance  Hospital  ....  14 

III.  The  Ford  Car  and  Its  Drivers 34 

IV.  The  Americans  at  Verdun 55 

V.     "Friends  of  France" 72 

VI.     The  Saving  Remnant 83 

SECTION   II 

why   some   AMERICANS   ARE   NEUTRAL 

I.     Neutrality:  An  Interpretation  of  the  Middle  West  93 

II.     Social  Workers  and  the  War 105 

III.  Forgetting  the  American  Tradition  .        .        .        .116 

IV.  Cosmopolitanism 129 

V.     The  Hyphenates 142 

VI.    The  Remedy 151 

SECTION    III 

the  GERMANS  THAT  ROSE   FROM   THE  DEAD 

I.     Lord  Bryce  on  German  Methods       .        .        .        -159 

II.     Some   German   War  Diaries 170 

III.  More  Diaries 186 

IV.  The  Boomerang 196 


X  CONTENTS 

SECTION   ly 

THE  PEASANTS 

PAGE 

I.  The  Lost  Villages 2n 

II.     The  Homeless 221 

III.  "MoN  Gamin" 226 

IV.  The  Mayor  on  the  Hilltop 228 

V.    The  Little  Corporal 240 

VI.    The  Good  Cure 244 

VII.     The  Three-Year-Old  Witness 257 

VIII.     Mirman  and  "Mes  Enfants" 261 

IX.     An  Appeal  to  the  Smaller  American  Communities  274 

X.     The  Evidence 289 

XI.     Sister  Julie 294 

XII.     Sister  Julie — Continued 312 

Addendum       . 321 

APPENDIX 

I.    To  the  Reader 329 

II.  To  Neutral  Critics 333 


SECTION   I 
AMERICANS   WHO   HELPED 


THE    TWO    AMERICAS 

THERE  are  two  Americas  to-day :  the  historic 
America,  which  still  lives  in  many  thou- 
sands of  persons,  and  the  new  various 
America,  which  has  not  completely  found  itself:  a 
people  of  mixed  blood,  divergent  ideals,  intent  on 
the  work  at  hand,  furious  in  its  pleasures,  with  the 
vitality  of  a  new  race  in  it,  sprinting  at  top  speed  in 
a  direction  it  does  not  yet  know,  to  a  goal  it  cannot 
see.  It  is  in  the  sweep  of  an  immense  experiment, 
accepting  all  races,  centering  on  no  single  strain. 

This  new  joy-riding  generation  has  struck  out  a 
fresh  philosophy  of  life,  which  holds  that  many  of 
the  old  responsibilities  can  be  passed  by,  that  the 
great  divide  has  been  crossed,  on  the  hither  side  of 
which  lay  poverty,  war,  sin,  pain,  fear:  the  ancient 
enemies  of  the  race.  On  the  further  side,  which  it 
is  believed  has  at  last  been  reached,  lie,  warm  in  the 
sun,  prosperity  and  peace,  a  righteousness  of  well- 
being.  It  is  a  philosophy  that  fits  snugly  into  a 
new  country  of  tonic  climate  and  economic  oppor- 
tunity, distant  by  three  thousand  miles  from  his- 

3 


4       OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

toric  quarrels  and  the  pressure  of  crowded  neigh- 
borhood. We  beheve  that,  by  coming  on  the  scene 
with  a  lot  of  vitality  and  good  cheer,  we  can  clean 
up  the  old  bothersome  problems  and  make  a  fresh 
start  in  the  sunshine.  Christian  Science  in  a  mild 
genial  form  is  the  national  religion  of  America.  We 
believe  that  maladies  and  failures  can  be  willed  out 
of  existence.  As  for  "the  fatalities  of  history,"  "an 
endless  war  between  two  mutually  exclusive  ideals," 
we  classify  that  way  of  thinking  with  the  surplus 
luggage  of  autocracies. 

Now,  there  is  a  wide  area  in  life  where  this  breezy 
burst  of  power  and  good-will  operates  effectively. 
It  is  salutary  for  stale  vendettas,  racial  prejudices, 
diseases  of  the  nerves,  egoistic  melancholias.  But 
there  are  certain  structural  disturbances  at  which  it 
takes  a  look  and  crosses  to  the  other  side,  preferring 
to  maintain  its  tip-top  spirits  and  its  complacency. 
It  does  not  cure  a  broken  arm,  and  it  leaves  Belgium 
to  be  hacked  through.  The  New  America  trusts  its 
melting-pot  automatically  to  remake  mixed  breeds 
over  night  into  citizens  of  the  Republic.  It  believes 
that  Ellis  Island  and  the  naturalization  offices 
somehow  do  something  with  a  laying  on  of  hands 
which  results  in  a  nation.  Meantime,  we  go  on 
blindly  and  busily  with  our  markets  and  base-ball 
and  million-dollar  films. 

Troubling  this  enormous  optimism  of  ours  came 


THE  TWO  AMERICAS  5 

suddenly  the  greatest  war  of  the  ages.  We  were 
puzzled  by  it  for  a  little,  and  then  took  up  again 
our  work  and  pleasures,  deciding  that  with  the 
causes  and  objects  of  this  war  we  were  not  con- 
cerned. That  was  the  clear  decision  of  the  new 
America  of  many  races,  many  minds.  The  gifted, 
graceful  voice  of  our  President  spoke  for  us  what 
already  we  had  determined  in  the  silence. 

But  there  are  those  of  us  that  were  not  satisfied 
with  the  answer  we  made.  The  fluent  now-famous 
phrases  did  not  content  us.  It  is  for  this  remnant 
in  our  population  that  this  book  is  written.  From 
this  remnant,  many,  numbering  thousands,  put  by 
their  work  and  pleasures,  and  came  across  the  sea, 
some  to  nurse,  and  some  to  carry  swift  relief  over 
dangerous  roads ;  still  others  to  fight  behind  trenches 
and  over  the  earth,  no  few  of  them  to  die.  Nearly 
forty  thousand  men  have  enlisted.  Many  hundred 
young  college  boys  are  driving  Red  Cross  cars  at  the 
front.  There  is  an  American  Flying  Squadron. 
Many  hundreds  of  American  men  and  women  are 
serving  in  hospitals.  Many  thousands  of  hard- 
working, simple  Americans  at  home  are  devoting 
their  spare  time  and  their  spare  money  to  relief. 

I  give  a  few  illustrations  of  the  American  effort. 
I  have  not  tried  to  show  the  extent  of  it.  I  trust 
some  day  the  work  will  be  catalogued  and  the  full 
account  published,  as  belonging  to  history.    For  we 


6      OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

have  not  wholly  failed  the  Allies.  I  have  merely 
sought  in  this  book  to  cheer  myself,  and,  I  trust, 
some  friends  of  "the  good  old  cause,  the  great  idea, 
the  progress  and  freedom  of  the  race,"  I  believe 
that  the  historic  America  has  spoken  and  has  acted 
in  this  war.  In  a  time  when  our  country,  perplexed 
by  its  own  problems  of  mixed  blood  and  warring 
ideas,  bewildered  by  its  great  possessions,  busy  with 
its  own  vast  work  of  shaking  down  a  continent,  has 
made  a  great  refusal,  it  is  good  to  have  the  spectacle 
of  some  thousands  of  young  Americans,  embracing 
poverty,  taking  dangers  and  even  death  gladly. 
There  is  something  of  the  ancient  crusade  still  stir- 
ring in  these  bones.  The  race  of  Wendell  Phillips 
and  Whittier  has  representatives  above  ground. 
There  was  an  America  once  that  would  not  have 
stood  by  when  its  old-time  companion  in  freedom 
was  tasting  the  bayonet  and  the  flame.  Some  of  that 
America  has  come  down  to  Chapman  and  Neville 
Hall,  to  Seeger,  Chapin,  Prince,  Bonnell. 

Nothing  said  here  is  meant  to  imply  that  the  sum 
of  all  American  efforts  is  comparable  to  the  gift 
which  the  men  of  France  and  Belgium  and  England 
have  made  us.  I  am  only  saying  that  a  minority  in 
our  population  has  seen  that  the  Allies  are  fighting 
to  preserve  spiritual  values  which  made  our  own 
past  great,  and  which  alone  can  make  our  future 
worthy. 


THE  TWO  AMERICAS  7 

That  minority,  inheriting  the  traditions  of  our 
race,  bearing  old  names  that  have  fought  for  liberty 
in  other  days,  has  clearly  recognized  that  no  such 
torture  has  come  in  recent  centuries  as  German  hands 
dealt  out  in  obedience  to  German  orders.  In  the 
section  on  French  peasants,  I  have  told  of  that 
suffering. 

In  another  section,  I  am  speaking  to  the  Ameri- 
cans who  remain  indifferent  to  the  acts  of  Germany. 
They  are  not  convinced  by  the  records  of  eye-wit- 
nesses. The  wreck  of  Belgium  is  not  sufficient. 
Will  they,  I  wonder,  be  moved,  if  one  rises  from 
the  dead.  We  shall  see,  for  in  this  book  I  give 
the  words  of  those  who  have,  as  it  were,  risen  from 
the  dead  to  speak  to  them.  I  give  the  penciled 
records  of  dead  Germans,  who  left  little  black  books 
to  tell  these  things  they  did  in  Flanders  and  the 
pleasant  land  of  France. 

There  are  many  persons  who  are  more  sincerely 
worried  lest  an  injustice  of  overstatement  should 
be  done  to  Germany  than  they  are  that  Germany 
has  committed  injustice  on  Belgium  and  Northern 
France.  The  burned  houses  and  murdered  peasants 
do  not  touch  them,  but  any  tinge  of  resentment,  any 
sign  of  anger,  in  criticizing  those  acts,  moves  them 
to  protest.  Frankly,  we  of  the  historic  tradition 
are  disturbed  when  we  see  a  wave  of  excitement 
pass  over  the  country  at  the  arrival  of  a  German 


8      OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

submarine — dinners  of  honor,  interviews  with  the 
"Viking"-Captain — and,  in  the  same  month,  a  per- 
fect calm  of  indifference  greeting  the  report  of  the 
French  girls  of  Lille  sent  away  and  of  families 
broken  up  and  scattered.  We  that  are  shocked  by 
the  cold  system  of  the  German  conquerors,  and  pub- 
lish the  facts  of  their  methodical  cruelty,  are  rebuked 
by  American  editors  and  social  workers  as  exercising 
our  heart  emotionally  at  the  expense  of  our  head. 
But  that  hysteria  which  greets  a  German  officer, 
indirectly  helping  in  the  job  of  perpetuating  the 
official  German  system  of  murder  and  arson,  is  ac- 
cepted as  American  vivacity,  a  sort  of  base-ball 
enthusiasm,  and  pleasant  revelation  of  sporting 
spirit. 

We  believe  we  are  not  un-American,  in  being 
Pro-Ally.  We  believe  we  are  holding  true  to  the 
ideas  which  created  our  country — ideas  brought 
across  from  the  best  of  England,  and  freshened  from 
the  soul  of  France.  We  believe  that  Benjamin 
Franklin  was  an  American  and  a  statesman  when 
he  wrote: — 

"What  would  you  think  of  a  proposition,  if  I 
should  make  it,  of  a  family  compact  between  Eng- 
land, France  and  America?  America  would  be  as 
happy  as  the  Sabine  girls  if  she  could  be  the  means 
of  uniting  in  perpetual  peace  her  father  and  her 
husband." 


THE  TWO  AMERICAS  9 

Cheer  the  Deutschland  in,  and  U-53,*  but  permit 
us  to  go  aside  a  little  way  and  mourn  the  dead  of  the 
Lusitania.  All  we  ask,  we  that  are  held  by  some  of 
the  old  loyalties,  is  that  we  be  not  counted  un- 
American.  We  ask  you  to  throw  our  beliefs,  too, 
into  the  vast  new  seething  mass.  Let  us  contribute 
to  the  great  experiment  a  little  of  the  old  collective 
experience.  Because  the  marching  feet  of  France 
strike  a  great  music  in  our  heart,  do  not  hold  us 
alien.  We  are  only  remembering  what  Washington 
knew.  He  was  glad  of  the  feet  of  those  young  men 
as  they  came  tramping  south  to  Yorktown. 

*  Some  of  our  people  go  further  even  than  the  giving  of  ban- 
quets to  the  efficient  staff  of  the  Deutschland.  They  give  praise 
to  U-53.  In  a  newspaper,  edited  and  owned  by  Americans,  and 
published  in  an  American  Middle  Western  city  of  40,000  inhabi- 
tants, the  leading  editorial  on  the  exploits  of  U-53  was  headed, 
"Hats   Off   to   German   Seamen,"   and   the   writer   says: 

"The  world  in  general  that  had  educated  itself  to  regard  the 
German  as  a  phlegmatic  and  plodding  citizen  will  remove  its 
headgear  in  token  of  approbation  of  the  sustained  series  of  sensa- 
tional feats  by  German  commanders  and  sailors.  The  entire 
aspect  of  affairs  has  been  changed  by  the  events  of  two  years. 
The  Germans  have  accumulated  as  much  heroic  and  romantic 
material  in  that  time  as  has  been  gathered  by  other  nations  since 
the   date   of  the  American   Revolution." 

In  the  second  section  of  this  book,  I  have  told  why  we  talk 
like  that  The  mixture  of  races  (mixed  but  not  blended),  the 
modern  theory  of  cosmopolitanism,  a  self-complacency  in  our 
attitude  toward  Europe,  an  assumption  that  we  alone  champion 
freedom  and  justice,  the  fading  of  our  historic  tradition — these 
have  caused  us  to  preach  internationalism,  but  fail  to  defend  our- 
selves or  the  little  nation  of  Belgium.  They  have  led  us  to 
admire   successful   force. 


10     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

In  the  immense  labors  of  the  naturalization  fac- 
tory, do  not  pause  to  excommunicate  us,  who  find 
an  ancient,  unfaded  freedom  in  England.  We  are 
moved  as  Lincoln  was  moved  when  he  wrote  to  the 
operatives  of  Lancashire — Englishmen  starving  be- 
cause of  our  blockade,  starving  but  not  protesting. 
Lincoln  wrote: — 

To  the  Workingmen  of  Manchester :  I  have  the  honor  to 
acknowledge  the  receipt  of  the  address  and  resolutions  which 
you  sent  me  on  the  eve  of  the  new  year.  When  I  came,  on 
the  fourth  of  March,  1861,  through  a  free  and  constitutional 
election  to  preside  in  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
the  country  was  found  at  the  verge  of  civil  war.  What- 
ever might  have  been  the  cause,  or  whosesoever  the  fault,  one 
duty,  paramount  to  all  others,  was  before  me,  namely,  to 
maintain  and  preserve  at  once  the  Constitution  and  the  integ- 
rity of  the  Federal  Republic.  A  conscientious  purpose  to 
perform  this  duty  is  the  key  to  all  the  measures  of  admin- 
istration which  have  been  and  to  all  which  will  hereafter  be 
pursued.  Under  our  frame  of  government  and  my  official 
oath,  I  could  not  depart  from  this  purpose  if  I  would.  It  is 
not  always  in  the  power  of  governments  to  enlarge  or  re- 
strict the  scope  of  moral  results  which  follow  the  policies 
that  they  may  deem  it  necessary  for  the  public  safety  from 
time  to  time  to  adopt. 

I  have  understood  well  that  the  duty  of  self-preservation 
rests  solely  with  the  American  people ;  but  I  have  at  the 
same  time  been  aware  that  favor  or  disfavor  of  foreign 
nations  might  have  a  material  influence  in  enlarging  or  pro- 
longing the  struggle  with  disloyal  men  in  which  the  country 
is  engaged.     A  fair  examination  of  history  has  served  to 


THE  TWO  AMERICAS  ii 

authorize  a  belief  that  the  past  actions  and  influences  of  the 
United  States  were  generally  regarded  as  having  been  bene- 
ficial toward  mankind.  I  have,  therefore,  reckoned  upon 
the  forbearance  of  nations.  Circumstances — to  some  of 
which  you  kindly  allude — induce  me  especially  to  expect  that 
if  justice  and  good  faith  should  be  practiced  by  the  United 
States,  they  would  encounter  no  hostile  influence  on  the  part 
of  Great  Britain.  It  is  now  a  pleasant  duty  to  acknowledge 
the  demonstration  you  have  given  of  your  desire  that  a  spirit 
of  amity  and  peace  toward  this  country  may  prevail  in  the 
councils  of  your  Queen,  who  is  respected  and  esteemed  in 
your  own  country  only  more  than  she  is  by  the  kindred 
nation  which  has  its  home  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

I  know  and  deeply  deplore  the  sufferings  which  the  work- 
ing-men at  Manchester,  and  in  all  Europe,  are  called  to 
endure  in  this  crisis.  It  has  been  often  and  studiously  repre- 
sented that  the  attempt  to  overthrow  this  government,  which 
was  built  upon  the  foundations  of  human  rights,  and  to  sub- 
stitute for  it  one  which  should  rest  exclusively  on  the  basis 
of  human  slavery,  was  likely  to  obtain  the  favor  of  Europe. 
Through  the  action  of  our  disloyal  citizens,  the  working-men 
of  Europe  have  been  subjected  to  severe  trials,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  forcing  their  sanction  to  that  attempt.  Under  the 
circumstances,  I  cannot  but  regard  your  decisive  utterances 
upon  the  question  as  an  instance  of  sublime  Christian  hero- 
ism which  has  not  been  surpassed  in  any  age  or  in  any  coun- 
try. It  is  indeed  an  energetic  and  reinspiring  assurance  of 
the  inherent  power  of  truth,  and  of  the  ultimate  and  uni- 
versal triumph  of  justice,  humanity,  and  freedom.  I  do  not 
doubt  that  the  sentiments  you  have  expressed  will  be  sus- 
tained by  your  great  nation ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have 
no  hesitation  in  assuring  you  that  they  will  excite  admira- 


12     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tion,  esteem,  and  the  most  reciprocal  feelings  of  friendship 
among  the  American  people.  I  hail  this  interchange  of  senti- 
ment, therefore,  as  an  augury  that  whatever  else  may  hap- 
pen, whatever  misfortune  may  befall  your  country  or  my 
own,  the  peace  and  friendship  which  now  exist  between  the 
two  nations  will  be,  as  it  shall  be  my  desire  to  make  them, 
perpetual. 

We  believe  that  Lincoln  would  have  wished  his 
people  to  show  a  like  partizanship  to-day  in  the 
cause  of  right.  Before  we  all  steer  quite  out  of  the 
tested  channel,  let  us  at  least  remind  you  that  those 
captains  knew  the  course.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  a 
return  to  the  past.  The  statesmanship  of  Franklin 
is  not  the  statesmanship  of  to-day.  What  Lincoln 
felt  is  out  of  tune  with  the  new  America.  We  must 
go  on  with  the  vast  new  turmoils,  the  strange  un- 
guessed  tendencies.  We  must  find  a  fresh  hope 
in  the  altered  world.  Meanwhile,  be  neutral,  but 
do  not  bid  us  be  neutral.  You  cannot  silence  us. 
We  mean  that  our  ideas  shall  live  and  fight  and 
finally  prevail. 

In  one  section  of  this  book  I  deal  with  what  the 
war  is  teaching  us.  The  peoples  of  Europe  are 
reasserting  the  rights  of  nationality.  We  must  un- 
derstand this.  We  need  a  wholesome  sense  of  our 
own  national  being  in  the  America  of  to-day. 
Nationality  .is  the  one  great  idea  in  the  modern 
world,  the  one  allegiance  left  us.  It  has  absorbed 
the  loyalties  and  fervor  that  used  to  be  poured  out 


THE  TWO  AMERICAS  13 

upon  art  and  religion.  Groups  of  persons  find  emo- 
tional release  in  the  Woman's  Movement,  in  Trades 
Unions,  in  Socialism.  But  the  one  universal  ex- 
pression for  the  entire  community  is  in  nationalism, 
the  assertion  of  selfhood  as  a  people.  Religious  re- 
vivals no  longer  draw  the  mind  of  the  mass  people. 
But  the  idea  of  nationality  sweeps  them.  It  gives 
them  the  sense  of  kinship,  it  answers  the  desire  for 
something  to  which  to  tie.  It  is  easily  possible  that 
this  idea  will  fade  as  the  God  of  the  Churches  and 
the  creative  love  of  beauty  faded.  The  Mazzini 
and  Lincoln  type  of  man  may  pass  as  the  poet  and 
the  saint,  Knights  and  Samurai,  passed.  But  not 
in  our  time,  not  in  a  few  hundred  years  to  come. 
Nationalism  may  be  only  one  more  of  the  necessary 
"useful  lies,"  one  more  illusion  of  the  human  race. 
But  it  will  serve  out  our  days.  The  mistake  is  in 
thinking  that  the  heart  of  the  common  people  will 
ever  be  satisfied  with  a  bare  mechanic  civilization. 
Men  are  unwilling  to  live  unless  they  have  some- 
thing to  die  for.  We  have  filled  the  foreground  in 
recent  years  with  new  automatic  machines,  new  sub- 
divisions of  repetitive  process.  We  tried  to  empty 
the  huge  modern  world  of  its  old  values.  Then  the 
people  came  and  smashed  the  structure,  and  found 
a  vast  emotional  release  in  the  war.  The  hope  of  a 
sane  future  is  not  in  suppressing  that  dynamic  of 
nationality.    We  must  direct  it. 


II 


THE  AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL 

THE  recital  of  the  young  college  boy  crowd- 
ing his  ambulance  between  singing  shells 
and  bringing  in  his  wounded  down  death's 
alley  is  familiar  and  stirring.  And  this,  for  most  of 
us,  has  been  the  entire  story.  But  that  is  only  the 
first  chapter.  It  is  of  no  value  to  bring  in  a  wounded 
man,  unless  there  is  a  field  hospital  to  give  him 
swift  and  wise  treatment,  unless  there  is  a  well- 
equipped  hospital-train  to  run  him  gently  down  to 
Paris,  unless  there  are  efficient  stretcher  bearers  at 
the  railroad  station  to  unload  him,  and  ambulances 
to  transport  him  to  new  quarters.  And  finally,  most 
important  of  all,  the  base  hospital  that  at  last  re- 
ceives him  must  be  furnished  with  skilled  doctors, 
surgeons,  nurses  and  orderlies,  or  all  the  haste  of 
transportation  has  gone  for  nothing.  For  it  is  in 
the  base  hospital  that  the  final  and  greatest  work 
with  the  wounded  man  is  wrought  out,  which  will 
let  him  go  forth  a  whole  man,  with  limbs  his  own 
and  a  face  unmarred,  or  will  discharge  him  a  wrecked 

14 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL     15 

creature,  crippled,  monstrous,  because  of  bungled 
treatment.  It  is  a  chain  with  no  weak  link  that  must 
be  forged  from  the  hour  of  the  wounding  at  Verdun 
to  the  day  of  hospital  discharge  at  Neuilly.  And 
that  final  success  of  the  restored  soldier  is  built  upon 
the  loyalty  of  hundreds  of  obscure  helpers,  far  back 
of  the  lines  of  glory.  That  which  is  fine  about  it  is 
the  very  absence  of  the  large  scale  romantic.  It  is 
humble  service  humbly  given,  with  no  war-medals  in 
sight,  no  mention  in  official  dispatches — only  a 
steady  fatiguing  drive  against  bugs  and  dirt  and 
germs  and  red  tape. 

So  I  begin  my  story  with  the  work  of  the  Scotch- 
American  at  the  entrance  of  the  American  Ambu- 
lance Hospital  at  Neuilly-sur-Seine.  He  is  the  man 
that  gives  every  entering  wounded  soldier  a  bath, 
and  he  does  it  thoroughly  in  four  and  a  half  min- 
utes. He  can  bathe  twelve  inside  the  hour.  He 
has  perfected  devices,  so  that  a  fractured  leg  won't 
be  hurt  while  the  man  is  being  scrubbed.  He  has 
worked  out  foot-rests,  and  body-rests  and  neck-rests 
in  the  tub.  This  man  has  taken  his  lowly  job  and 
made  it  into  one  of  the  important  departments  of 
the  hospital.  And  with  him  begins,  too,  the  long 
tale  of  inventive  appliances  which  are  lessening  suf- 
fering. The  hospital  is  full  of  them  in  each  branch 
of  the  service.  Everywhere  you  go  in  relief  work 
of  this  war,  you  see  devices — little  things  that  re- 


i6    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

lieve  pain,  and  save  time  and  speed  up  recovery. 
That  is  one  of  the  things  differentiating  this  war 
from  the  old-time  slaughters,  where  most  of  the  seri- 
ously wounded  died:  the  omnipresence  of  mechan- 
ical, electrical,  devices.  Inventive  skill  has  wreaked 
itself  on  the  sudden  awful  human  need.  The  hid- 
eously clever  bombs,  and  big  guns,  all  the  ingenious 
instruments  of  torture,  will  shoot  themselves  away 
and  pass.  But  the  innumerable  appliances  of  resto- 
ration, the  machinery  of  welfare,  suddenly  called 
into  being  out  of  the  mechanic  brain  of  our  time, 
under  pressure  of  the  agonizing  need,  will  go  on 
with  their  ministry  when  Lorraine  is  again  green. 

The  Ambulance  is  the  cheeriest,  the  cleanest,  the 
most  efficient  place  which  I  have  visited  since  the 
beginning  of  the  war.  There  is  no  hospital  odor 
anywhere.  Fresh  air  and  sunshine  are  in  the  wards. 
A  vagrant  from  Mars  or  the  moon,  who  wanted  an 
answer  to  some  of  his  questions  about  the  lay-out 
of  things,  would  find  his  quest  shortened  by  spend- 
ing an  afternoon  at  the  American  Ambulance. 

What  does  America  mean*?  What  is  it  trying  to 
do*?  How  does  it  differ  from  other  sections  of  the 
map? 

The  swift  emergency  handling  of  each  situation 
has  been  American  in  its  executive  efficiency.  Things 
have  been  done  in  a  hurry,  and  done  well.  In 
eighteen  days  this  building  was  taken  over  from  a 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL     17 

partially  completed  school,  with  the  refuse  of  con- 
struction work  heaped  high,  and  made  into  an  ac- 
tively-running hospital  ready  for  175  patients. 
That,  too,  in  those  early  days  of  war,  when  work- 
men had  been  called  to  the  colors,  when  money  was 
unobtainable,  transportation  tied  up,  and  Germany 
pounding  down  on  Paris. 

The  skillful  surgical  work,  some  of  it  pioneering 
in  fields  untouched  by  former  experience,  has  been 
a  demonstration  of  the  best  American  practice. 

The  extraordinarily  varied  types  of  persons  at 
work  under  one  roof  in  a  democracy  of  service  pre- 
sents just  the  aspect  of  our  community  which  is 
most  representative.  Millionaires  and  an  imper- 
sonator. Harvard,  Dartmouth,  Tech,  Columbia, 
Fordham,  Michigan,  Princeton,  Cornell  and  Yale 
men,  ranchers,  lawyers,  and  newspaper  men — all  are 
hard  at  work  on  terms  of  exact  equality.  A  colored 
man  came  in  one  day.  He  said  he  wanted  to  help 
with  the  wounded.  He  was  tried  out,  and  proved 
himself  one  of  the  best  helpers  in  the  organization. 
He  received  the  same  treatment  as  all  other  helpers, 
eating  with  them,  liked  by  them.  Some  weeks  later, 
one  of  our  wealthy  "high-life"  young  Americans 
volunteered  his  services.  After  the  first  meal  he 
came  wrathfully  to  the  surgeon. 

"I've  had  to  eat  at  the  same  table  with  a  negro. 


i8     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

That  must  be  changed.  What  will  you  do  about 
it?" 

"Do  about  it,"  answered  the  surgeon.  "You  will 
do  one  of  two  things — go  and  apologize  to  a  better 
man  than  you  are,  or  walk  out  of  this  hospital." 

Recently  this  black  helper  came  to  the  director 
in  distress  of  mind. 

"Have  to  leave  you,"  he  said.  He  held  out  a 
letter  from  the  motor  car  firm,  near  Paris,  where  he 
he  had  worked  before  the  war.  It  was  a  request  for 
him  to  return  at  once.  If  he  did  not  obey  now  in 
this  time  of  need,  it  meant  there  would  never  be  any 
position  for  him  after  the  war  as  long  as  he  lived. 

A  day  or  two  later  he  came  again. 

"My  old  woman  and  I  have  been  talking  it  over," 
he  said,  "and  I  just  can't  leave  this  work  for  the 
wounded.    We'll  get  along  some  way." 

A  little  more  time  passed,  and  then,  one  day,  he 
stepped  up  to  the  director  and  said: 

"I  want  you  to  meet  my  boss." 

The  superintendent  of  the  motor  car  factory  had 
come.    He  said  to  the  director: 

"I  have  received  the  most  touching  letter  from 
this  darkey,  saying  he  couldn't  come  back  to  us  be- 
cause he  must  help  here.  Now  I  want  to  tell  you 
that  his  position  is  open  to  him  any  time  that  he 
wants  it,  during  the  war,  or  after  it." 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL     19 

Visitors,  after  walking  through  the  wards,  smell- 
ing no  odors,  hearing  no  groans,  seeing  the  faces  of 
the  men  smiling  back  at  them,  are  constantly  saying 
to  the  director: 

"Ah,  I  see  you  have  no  really  serious  cases  here." 

It  is  the  only  kind  of  case  sent  to  Neuilly — the 
gravely  wounded  man,  the  ''grands  blesses^'  requir- 
ing infinite  skill  to  save  the  limb  and  life.  So  sweet 
and  hopeful  is  the  "feel"  of  the  place  that  not  even 
575  beds  of  men  in  extremity  can  poison  that  atmos- 
phere of  successful  practice.  Alice's  Queen  had  a 
certain  casual  promptness  in  saying,  "Off  with  his 
head,"  whenever  she  sighted  a  subject.  And  there 
was  some  of  the  same  spirit  in  the  old-time  war- 
surgeon  when  he  was  confronted  with  a  case  of 
multiple  fracture.  "Amputate.  Off  with  his  leg. 
Off  with  his  arm."  And  that,  in  the  majority  of 
cases,  was  the  same  as  guillotining  the  patient,  for 
the  man  later  died  from  infection.  There  was  a 
surgical  ward  in  one  of  the  1870  Paris  hospitals 
with  an  unbroken  record  of  death  for  every  major 
operation.  At  the  American  Ambulance,  out  of  the 
first  3,100  operations,  there  were  81  amputations. 
The  death  rate  for  the  first  year  was  4.46  per  cent. 

These  gunshot  injuries,  involving  compound  and 
multiple  fractures,  are  treated  by  incision,  and  drain- 
age of  the  infected  wounds  and  the  removal  of 
foreign  bodies.     A  large  element  in  the  success  has 


20     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

been  the  ingenuity  of  the  staff  in  creating  appli- 
ances that  give  efficient  drainage  to  the  wound  and 
comfort  to  the  patient.  The  same  inventive  skill  is 
at  work  in  the  wards  that  we  saw  on  entering  the 
hospital  in  the  bathroom  of  the  Scotch-American. 
These  devices,  swinging  from  a  height  over  the  bed, 
are  slats  of  wood  to  which  are  jointed  the  splints 
for  holding  the  leg  or  arm  in  a  position  where  the 
wound  will  drain  without  causing  pain  to  the  re- 
cumbent man.  The  appearance  of  a  ward  full  of 
these  swinging  appliances  is  a  little  like  that  of  a 
gymnasium.  Half  the  wounded  men  riding  into 
Paris  ask  to  be  taken  to  the  American  Hospital. 
They  know  the  high  chance  of  recovery  they  will 
have  there  and  the  personal  consideration  they  will 
receive.  The  Major-General  enjoys  the  best  which 
the  Hospital  can  offer.  So  does  the  sailor  boy  from 
the  Fusiliers  Marins. 

We  had  spent  about  an  hour  in  the  wards.  We 
had  seen  the  flying  man  who  had  been  shot  to  pieces 
in  the  air,  but  had  sailed  back  to  his  own  lines,  made 
his  report  and  collapsed.  We  had  talked  with  the 
man  whose  face  had  been  obliterated,  and  who  was 
now  as  he  had  once  been,  except  for  a  little  ridge  of 
flesh  on  his  lower  left  cheek.  I  had  seen  a  hundred 
men  brighten  as  the  surgeon  "jollied"  them.  The 
cases  were  beginning  to  merge  for  me  into  one  gen- 
eral picture  of  a  patient,  contented  peasant  in  a 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL    21 

clean  bed  with  a  friend  chatting  with  him,  and  the 
gift  of  fruit  or  a  bottle  of  champagne  on  the  little 
table  by  his  head.  I  was  beginning  to  lose  the  sense 
of  the  personal  in  the  immense,  well-conducted  insti- 
tution, with  its  routine  and  system.  After  all,  these 
men  represented  the  necessary  wastage  of  war,  and 
here  was  a  business  organization  to  deal  with  these 
by-products.  I  was  forgetting  that  it  was  some- 
body's husband  in  front  of  me,  and  only  thinking 
that  he  was  a  lucky  fellow  to  be  in  such  a  well- 
ordered  place. 

Then  the  whole  sharp  individualizing  work  of  the 
war  came  back  in  a  stab,  for  we  had  reached  the 
bed  of  the  American  boy  who  had  fought  with  the 
Foreign  Legion  since  September,  1914. 

"Your  name  is  Bonnell*?"  I  asked. 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  spell  it  B-o-n-n-e  double  1^" 

"Yes." 

"By  any  chance,  do  you  know  a  friend  of  mine, 
Charles  Bonnell?" 

"He's  my  uncle." 

And  right  there  in  the  presence  of  the  boy  in  blue- 
striped  pajamas,  my  mind  went  back  over  the  years. 
Twenty-seven  years  ago,  I  had  come  to  New  York, 
and  grown  to  know  the  tall,  quiet  man,  six  feet  two 
he  was,  and  kind  to  small  boys.  He  was  head  of  a 
book-store  then  and  now.     For  these  twenty-seven 


22     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

years  I  have  known  him,  one  of  my  best  friends, 
and  here  was  his  nephew. 

"Do  you  think  I'm  taller  than  my  uncle*?"  the 
boy  asked,  standing  up.  He  stood  erect :  you  would 
never  have  known  there  was  any  trouble  down  be- 
low. But  as  my  eye  went  up  and  down  the  fine 
slim  figure,  I  saw  that  his  right  leg  was  off  at  the 
knee. 

"I  can't  play  base-ball  any  more,"  he  said. 

"No,  but  you  can  go  to  the  games,"  said  the 
director;  "that's  all  the  most  of  us  do. 

"I  wish  I  had  come  here  sooner,"  he  went  on  as 
he  sat  back  on  the  bed:  standing  was  a  strain.  He 
meant  he  might  have  saved  his  leg. 

"We  came  away. 

"Now  he  wants  to  go  into  the  fiying  corps,"  said 
the  surgeon. 

He  still  had  his  two  arms,  and  the  loss  of  a  leg 
didn't  so  much  matter  when  you  fly  instead  of 
march. 

"Flying  is  the  only  old-fashioned  thing  left,"  re- 
marked the  boy,  in  a  later  talk.  "You  might  as 
well  work  in  a  factory  as  fight  in  a  trench — only 
there's  no  whistle  for  time  off." 

I  have  almost  omitted  the  nurses  from  this  chap- 
ter, because  we  have  grown  so  used  to  loyalty  and 
devotion  in  women  that  these  qualities  in  them  do 
not  constitute  news.     The  trained  nurses  of  the 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL    23 

Ambulance  Hospital,  with  half  a  dozen  exceptions, 
are  Americans,  with  a  long  hospital  experience  at 
home.  During  the  early  months  they  served  with 
no  remuneration.  An  allowance  of  100  francs  a 
month  has  now  been  established.  They  reluctantly 
accepted  this,  as  each  was  anxious  to  continue  on  the 
purely  voluntary  basis.  There  are  also  volunteer 
auxiliary  nurses,  who  serve  as  assistants  to  the 
trained  women.  The  entire  nursing  staff  has  been 
efficient  and  self-sacrificing. 

We  entered  the  department  where  some  of  the 
most  brilliant  surgical  work  of  the  war  has  been 
done.  It  is  devoted  to  those  cases  where  the  face 
has  been  damaged.  The  cabinet  is  filled  with  photo- 
graphs, the  wall  is  lined  with  masks,  revealing  the 
injury  when  the  wounded  man  entered,  and  then 
the  steps  in  the  restoration  of  the  face  to  its  original 
structure  and  look.  There  in  front  of  me  were  the 
reproductions  of  the  injury:  the  chin  shot  away, 
the  cheeks  in  shreds,  the  mouth  a  yawning  aperture, 
holes  where  once  was  a  nose — all  the  ghastly  pranks 
of  shell-fire  tearing  away  the  structure,  wiping  out 
the  human  look.  Masks  were  there  on  the  wall  of 
man  after  man  who  would  have  gone  back  into 
life  a  monster,  a  thing  for  children  to  run  from, 
but  brought  back  inside  the  human  race,  restored  to 
the  semblance  of  peasant  father,  the  face  again  the 
recorder  of  kindly  expression.    The  surgeon  and  the 


24     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

dental  expert  work  together  on  these  cases.  The 
success  belongs  equally  to  each  of  the  two  men. 
Between  them  they  make  a  restoration  of  function 
and  of  appearance. 

In  peace  days,  a  city  hospital  would  have  only 
three  or  four  fractures  of  the  jaw  in  a  year,  and 
they  were  single  fractures.  There  are  no  accidents 
in  ordinary  life  to  produce  the  hideous  results  of 
shell-fire.  So  there  was  no  experience  to  go  on. 
There  were  no  reference  books  recording  the  treat- 
ment of  wounds  to  the  face  caused  by  the  projectiles 
of  modern  warfare.  Hideous  and  unprecedented 
were  the  cases  dumped  by  the  hundreds  into  the 
American  Ambulance.  Because  of  the  pioneer  suc- 
cess of  this  hospital,  the  number  of  these  cases  has 
steadily  increased.  They  are  classified  as  "gunshot 
wounds  of  the  face,  involving  the  maxillae,  and  re- 
quiring the  intervention  of  dental  surgery."  These 
are  compound  fractures  of  the  jaw,  nearly  always 
accompanied  by  loss  of  the  soft  parts  of  the  mouth 
and  chin,  sometimes  by  the  almost  complete  loss  of 
the  face. 

I  have  seen  this  war  at  its  worst.  I  have  seen 
the  largest  hospital  in  France  filled  with  the  griev- 
ously-wounded. I  have  seen  the  wounded  out  in 
the  fields  of  Ypres,  waiting  to  be  carried  in.  I  have 
seen  the  Maison  Blanche  thronged  with  the  Army 
of  the  Mutilated.    I  have  carried  out  the  dead  from 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL    25 

hospital  and  ambulance,  and  I  have  watched  them 
lie  in  strange  ways  where  the  great  shell  had  struck. 
But  death  is  a  pleasant  gift,  and  the  loss  of  a  limb 
is  light.  For  death  leaves  a  rich  memory.  And  a 
crippled  soldier  is  dearer  than  he  ever  was  to  the 
little  group  that  knows  him.  But  to  be  made  into 
that  which  is  terrifying  to  the  children  that  were 
once  glad  of  him,  to  bring  shrinking  to  the  woman 
that  loved  him — that  is  the  foulest  thing  done  by 
war  to  the  soldier.  So  it  was  the  most  gallant  of 
all  relief  work  that  I  have  seen — this  restoration  of 
disfigured  soldiers  to  their  own  proper  appearance. 
And  the  work  of  these  hundreds  of  Americans  at 
Neuilly  was  summed  for  me  in  the  person  of  one 
dental  surgeon,  who  sat  a  few  feet  from  those  forty 
masks  and  those  six  hundred  photographs,  working 
at  a  plaster-cast  of  a  shattered  jaw.  He  was  very 
much  American — rangy  and  loose-jointed,  with  a 
twang  and  a  drawl,  wondering  why  the  blazes  a 
writing  person  was  bothering  a  man  at  work.  It  was 
his  time  off,  after  six  da3^s  of  patient  fitting  of  part 
to  part,  and  that  for  a  year.  So  he  was  taking  his 
day  off  to  transform  one  more  soldier  from  a  raw 
pulp  to  a  human  being.  There  were  no  motor  car 
dashes,  and  no  military  medals,  for  him.  Only  hard 
work  on  suffering  men.  There  he  sat  at  his  pioneer 
work  in  a  realm  unplumbed  by  the  mind  of  man. 
It  called  on  deeper  centers  of  adventure  than  any 


26     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

jungle-exploration  or  battle-exploit.  It  was  science 
at  its  proper  business  of  salvation.  Those  Krupp 
howitzers  were  not  to  have  their  own  way,  after  all. 
Here  he  was,  wiping  out  all  the  foul  indignities 
which  German  scientists  had  schemed  in  their  labo- 
ratories. 

Two  days  later,  I  saw  the  boys  of  the  American 
Ambulance  unload  the  wounded  of  Verdun  from  the 
famous  American  train.  The  announcement  of  the 
train's  approach  was  simple  enough — these  words 
scribbled  in  pencil  by  the  French  authorities: 

''12  Musulman 

^'241  Blesses 

"8  Officiers 

"7  Malade 

'''Train  Americain  de  Revigny^ 

Those  twelve  "Musulman"  are  worth  pausing 
with  for  a  moment.  They  are  Mohammedans  of 
the  French  colonies,  who  must  be  specially  fed  be- 
cause their  religion  does  not  permit  them  to  eat  of 
the  unholy  food  of  unbelievers.  So  a  hospital  pro- 
vides a  proper  menu  for  them. 

Add  the  figures,  and  you  have  262  soldiers  on 
stretchers  to  be  handled  by  the  squad  of  38  men 
from  the  American  Ambulance.  They  marched  up 
the  platform  in  excellent  military  formation.  The 
train  rolled  in,  and  they  jumped  aboard,  four  to 
each  of  the  eight  large  cars,  holding  36  men  each. 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL    27 

In  twenty-seven  minutes  they  had  cleared  the  train, 
and  deposited  the  stretchers  on  the  platforms.  There 
the  wounded  pass  into  the  hands  of  French  order- 
lies, who  carry  them  to  the  French  doctors  in  wait- 
ing in  the  station.  As  quickly  the  doctor  passed  the 
wounded,  the  boys  took  hold  again  and  loaded  the 
ambulances  en  route  to  Paris  hospitals.  It  was  all 
breathless,  perspiring  work,  but  without  a  slip. 
There  is  never  a  slip,  and  that  is  why  they  are  do- 
ing this  work.  The  American  Ambulance  has  the 
job  of  unloading  three-fourths  of  all  the  wounded 
that  come  into  Paris.  The  boys  are  strong  and  sure- 
handed,  and  the  War  Ministry  rests  easy  in  letting 
them  deal  with  this  delicate,  important  work.  They 
feel  pride  in  a  prompt  clean-cut  job.  But,  more 
than  that,  they  have  a  deep  inarticulate  desire  to 
make  things  easier  for  a  man  in  pain.  I  saw  the 
boys  pick  up  stretcher  after  stretcher  as  it  lay  on 
the  platform  and  hurry  it  to  the  doctor.  That 
wasn't  their  job  at  all.  Their  job  was  only  to  unload 
the  train,  but  they  could  not  let  a  wounded  man  lie 
waiting  for  red  tape.  I  watched  one  long-legged 
chap  who  ran  from  the  job  he  had  just  completed 
to  each  new  place  of  need,  doing  three  times  as 
much  work  as  even  his  strenuous  duty  called  for. 

"Look  here,"  I  said  to  Budd,  the  young  Texan, 
who  is  Lieutenant  of  the  Station  squad.  I  pointed 
to  a  man  on  a  stretcher.    My  eye  had  only  shown  me 


28     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

that  the  sight  was  strange  and  pathetic.  But  his 
quicker  eye  caught  that  the  man  needed  help.  He 
ran  over  to  him  and  struck  a  match  as  he  went.  The 
soldier  had  his  face  swathed  in  bandages.  Arms 
and  hands  were  thick  with  bandages,  so  that  every 
gesture  he  made  was  bungling.  He  had  a  cigarette 
in  his  mouth,  just  clear  of  the  white  linen.  But  he 
couldn't  bring  a  match  and  the  box  together  in  his 
muffled  hands  so  as  to  get  a  light.  He  was  making 
queer,  unavailing  motions,  like  a  baby's.  In  another 
second  he  was  contentedly  smoking  and  telling  his 
story.  A  hand  grenade  which  he  was  throwing  had 
exploded  prematurely  in  his  hands  and  face. 

Work  at  the  front  is  pretty  good  fun.  There  is 
a  lot  of  camaraderie  with  the  fighting  men:  the  ex- 
change of  a  smoke  and  a  talk,  and  the  sense  of  being 
at  the  center  of  things.  The  war  zone,  whatever 
its  faults,  is  the  focal  point  of  interest  for  all  the 
world.  It  is  something  to  be  in  the  storm  center  of 
history.  But  this  gruelling  unromantic  work  back 
in  Paris  is  lacking  in  all  those  elements.  No  one 
claps  you  on  the  back,  and  says: 

"Big  work,  old  top.  We've  been  reading  about 
you.  Glad  you  got  your  medal.  It  must  be  hell 
under  fire.  But  we  always  knew  you  had  it  in  you. 
Come  around  to  the  Alumni  Association  banquet  and 
give  us  a  talk.  Prexy  will  be  there,  and  we'll  put 
you  down  for  the  other  speech  of  the  evening." 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL     29 

What  the  people  say  is  this : 

"Ah,  back  in  Paris,  were  you^  Not  much  to  do 
there,  I  guess.  Must  have  been  slow.  Couldn't  work 
it  to  get  the  front?  Well,  we  can't  all  be  heroes. 
Have  you  met  Dick?  He  was  at  Verdun,  you  know. 
Big  time.  Had  a  splinter  go  through  his  hood.  Bet- 
ter come  round  to  our  annual  feed,  and  hear  him  tell 
about  it.    So  long.    See  you  again." 

But  the  boys  themselves  know,  and  the  hurt  sol- 
diers know,  and  the  War  Minister  of  France  knows. 
These  very  much  unadvertised  young  Americans, 
your  sons  and  brothers,  reader,  often  sit  up  all  night 
waiting  for  a  delayed  train. 

These  boys  of  ours,  shifting  stretchers,  wheeling 
legless  men  to  a  place  in  the  sun,  driving  ambu- 
lances, are  the  most  fortunate  youth  in  fifty  years. 
They  are  being  infected  by  a  finer  air  than  any  that 
has  blown  through  our  consciousness  since  John 
Brown's  time.  And  the  older  Americans  over  here 
have  that  Civil  War  tradition  in  their  blood.  They 
are  gray-haired  and  some  of  them  white-haired. 
For,  all  over  our  country,  individual  Americans  are 
breaking  from  the  tame  herd  and  taking  the  old 
trail,  again,  the  trail  of  hardships  and  sacrifice. 
They  have  found  something  wrong  with  America, 
and  want  to  make  it  right.  I  saw  it  in  the  man 
from  Philadelphia,  a  well-to-do  lawyer  who  crossed 
in   the  boat  with  me.     He   was  gray-haired,   the 


30     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

father  of  three  children,  one  a  boy  of  twenty-one. 
He  was  taking  his  first  real  vacation  after  a  life- 
time of  concentrated  successful  work.  I  saw  him 
lifting  stretchers  out  of  the  Verdun  train. 

Boys  and  old  men  with  an  equal  faith.  The  gen- 
eration that  isn't  much  represented  over  here  is  that 
of  the  in-betweeners,  men  between  thirty-five  and 
fifty  years  of  age.  They  grew  up  in  a  time  when 
our  national  patriotism  was  sagging,  when  security 
and  fat  profits  looked  more  inviting  than  sacrifice 
for  the  common  good.  Our  country  will  not  soon 
be  so  low  again  as  in  the  period  that  bred  these  total 
abstainers  from  the  public  welfare.  The  men  and 
boys  who  have  worked  here  are  going  to  return  to 
our  community — several  hundred  have  already  re- 
turned— with  a  profound  dissatisfaction  with  our 
national  life  as  it  has  been  conducted  in  recent  years. 

I  have  left  the  American  train  standing  at  the 
platform  all  this  time,  but  it  rests  there  till  the 
afternoon,  for  it  takes  three  hours  to  clean  it  for 
its  trip  back  to  the  front.  Only  three  hours — one 
more  swift  job  by  our  contingent.  It  is  the  best 
ambulance  train  in  France.  The  huge  luggage  vans 
of  the  trans-continental  expresses  were  requisitioned. 
Two  American  surgeons  and  one  French  Medecin 
Chef  travel  with  the  wounded  men.  It  carries  240 
stretchers  and  24  sitting  cases  in  its  eight  cars  for 
"Les  blesses."     The  five  other  cars  are  devoted  to 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL    31 

an  operating  room,  a  kitchen  for  bouillon,  a  dining 
car,  a  sleeping  car  for  the  surgeons,  and  the  other 
details  of  administration.  Safety,  speed  and  com- 
fort are  its  slogan.  The  stretchers  rest  on  firm 
wooden  supports  riding  on  an  iron  spring.  The 
entire  train  is  clean,  sweet  smelling,  and  travels 
easily.  J.  E.  Rochfort,  who  has  charge  of  it,  went 
around  to  the  men  on  stretchers  as  they  lay  on  the 
platform. 

"You  rode  easily*?"  he  asked. 

"Tres  bien:  tres  confortabler 

If  an  emergency  case  develops  during  the  long 
ride,  the  train  stops  while  the  operation  is  performed. 
It  is  also  held  up  at  times  by  the  necessities  of  war. 
For  the  wounded  must  be  side-tracked  for  more 
important  items  of  military  demand — shells,  food, 
fresh  troops. 

Village  and  town  along  its  route  turn  out  and 
throng  the  station  to  see  the  ''Train  Americainy  The 
exterior  of  the  cars  carries  a  French  flag  at  one  end, 
and,  at  the  other,  the  American  flag.  I  like  to  think 
of  our  flag,  painted  on  the  brown  panel  of  every  car 
of  the  great  train,  and  brightly  scoured  each  day, 
riding  through  France  from  Verdun  to  Paris,  from 
Biarritz  to  Revigny,  and  the  thousands  of  simple 
people  watching  its  progress,  knowing  its  precious 
freight  of  wounded,  saying,  "L^  train  Americain^" 
as  they  sight  the  painted  emblem.    It  is  where  it  be- 


32     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

longs — side  by  side  with  the  Tricolor.  There  isn't  a 
great  question  loose  on  the  planet  to-day,  where  the 
best  of  us  isn't  in  accord  with  the  best  of  France. 

That  is  the  biggest  thing  we  are  doing  over  there, 
carrying  a  message  of  good-will  from  the  Yser  to 
Bel  fort,  up  and  down  and  clear  across  France,  and 
"every  town  and  every  hamlet  has  heard"  not  our 
"trumpet  blast,"  but  the  whirr  of  our  rescue  motors 
and  the  sweetly  running  wheels  of  our  express.  It 
is  one  with  the  work  of  the  Ambulance  Hospital, 
where,  after  the  bitter  weeks  of  healing,  the  young 
soldier  of  France  receives  his  discharge  from  hos- 
pital. Looking  on  the  photograph  and  plaster  cast 
of  what  shell-fire  had  made  of  him,  and  seeing  him- 
self restored  to  the  old  manner  of  man,  he  has  a 
feeling  of  friendliness  for  the  Americans  who  saved 
him  from  the  horror  that  might  have  been.  The 
man  whose  bed  lay  next  walks  out  on  his  own  two 
legs  instead  of  hobbling  crippled  for  the  rest  of  his 
life,  and  he  remembers  those  curious  devices  of 
swinging  splints,  which  eased  the  pain  and  saved 
the  leg.  He,  too,  holds  a  kindly  feeling  for  the 
nation  that  has  made  him  not  only  a  well  man,  but 
a  whole  man.  And  America  has  two  more  friends  in 
France,  in  some  little  village  of  the  province. 

This  work  of  the  hospital,  the  train,  the  motor 
ambulance,  is  doing  away  with  the  shock  and  hurt 
of  our  aloofness.  These  young  Americans,  stretcher- 
bearers  and  orderlies,  surgeons  and  nurses,  drivers 


AMERICAN  AMBULANCE  HOSPITAL    33 

and  doctors,  are  unconscious  statesmen.  They  are 
building  for  us  a  better  foreign  policy.  It  is  a  long 
distance  for  friendly  voices  of  America  to  carry 
across  the  Atlantic.  But  these  helpers  are  on  the 
spot,  moving  among  the  common  people  and  creat- 
ing an  international  relationship  which  not  even  the 
severe  strain  of  a  dreary  aloofness  can  undo.  Our 
true  foreign  policy  is  being  worked  out  at  Neuilly 
and  through  the  war-cursed  villages.  This  is  our 
answer  to  indifference:  the  gliding  of  the  immense 
train  through  France,  carrying  men  in  agony  to  a 
sure  relief;  the  swift,  tender  handling  of  those 
wounded  in  their  progress  from  the  trench  to  the 
ward;  the  making  over  of  these  shattered  soldiers 
into  efficient  citizens. 

The  quarrel  none  of  ours*? 

The  suffering  is  very  much  ours. 

Too  proud  to  fight*? 

Not  too  proud  to  carry  bed-pans  and  wash  mud- 
caked,  blood-marked  men.  Not  too  proud  to  be  shot 
at  in  going  where  they  lie. 

Neutrality  of  word  and  thought"? 

We  are  the  friends  of  these  champions  of  all  the 
values  we  hold  dear. 

War  profits  out  of  their  blood"? 

Many  hundreds  have  given  up  their  life-work, 
their  career,  their  homes,  to  work  in  lowly  ways, 
with  no  penny  of  profit,  no  hope  of  glory,  "just 
because  she's  France." 


Ill 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS 

THIS  is  the  story  of  the  American  Ambu- 
lance Field  Service  in  the  words  of  the 
boys  themselves  who  drove  the  cars.  Fresh 
to  their  experience,  they  jotted  down  the  things  that 
happened  to  them  in  this  strange  new  life  of  war. 
These  notes,  sometimes  in  pencil,  sometimes  writ- 
ten with  the  pocket  fountain  pen,  they  sent  to  their 
chief,  Piatt  Andrew,  and  he  has  placed  these  un- 
published day-by-day  records  of  two  hundred  men 
at  my  disposal.  Anybody  would  be  stupid  who 
tried  to  rewrite  their  reports.  I  am  simply  passing 
along  what  they  say. 

One  section  of  the  Field  Service  with  twenty  cars 
was  thrown  out  into  Alsace  for  the  campaign  on  the 
crest  of  Hartmannsweilerkopf.  Here  is  some  of  the 
fiercest  fighting  of  the  war.  Hartmannsweilerkopf 
is  the  last  mountain  before  the  Plain  of  the  Rhine, 
and  commands  that  valley.  The  hill  crest  was  taken 
and  retaken.  Here,  too,  is  the  one  sector  of  the 
Western  Front  where  the  French  are  fighting  in  the 

34 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS    35 

enemy's  country.  Alsace  has  been  German  territory 
for  forty-three  years.  The  district  known  as  Haute 
Alsace  is  a  range  of  mountains,  running  roughly 
north  and  south;  to  the  east  lies  German  Alsace, 
to  the  west  the  level  country  of  French  Alsace.  On 
the  crest  of  the  mountains  the  armies  of  France  and 
Germany  have  faced  each  other.  The  business  of 
the  ambulances  has  been  to  bring  wounded  from 
those  heights  to  the  railway  stations  in  the  plain 
John  Melcher,  Jr.,  says  of  this  work : 
"The  mountain  service  consists  in  climbing  to 
the  top  of  a  mountain,  some  4,000  feet  high,  where 
the  wounded  are  brought  to  us.  Two  cars  are  al- 
ways kept  in  a  little  village  down  the  mountain  on 
the  other  side.  This  little  village  is  a  few  kilometers 
behind  the  trenches,  and  is  sometimes  bombarded 
by  the  Germans.  The  roads  up  the  mountain  are 
very  steep,  particularly  on  the  Alsatian  side.  They 
are  rough  and  so  narrow  that  in  places  vehicles  can- 
not pass.  These  roads  are  full  of  ruts,  and  at  some 
points  are  corduroy,  the  wood  practically  forming 
steps.  On  one  side  there  is  always  a  sheer  preci- 
pice." 

"If  you  go  off  the  road,"  writes  one  of  our  young 
drivers,  "it  is  probably  to  stay,  and  all  the  while 
a  grade  that  in  some  parts  has  to  be  rushed  in  low 
speed  to  be  surmounted.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that 
in  the  rainy  (or  usual)  weather  of  the  Vosges,  the 


36     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

upper  half  is  in  the  clouds,  and  seeing  becomes  nearly- 
impossible,  especially  at  night.  Before  our  advent 
the  wounded  were  transported  in  wagons  or  on  mule- 
backs,  two  stretchers,  one  on  each  side  of  the  mule. 
Two  of  us  tried  this  method  of  travel  and  were 
nearly  sick  in  a  few  minutes.  Imagine  the  wounded 
— five  hours  for  the  trip!  That  so  many  survived 
speaks  well  for  the  hardihood  of  the  "Blue  Devils." 
Now  with  our  cars  the  trip  takes  i^  or  2  hours. 
We  get  as  close  to  the  trenches  as  any  cars  go.  Our 
wounded  are  brought  to  us  on  trucks  like  wheelbar- 
rows, or,  at  night,  on  mules,  about  one-half  hour 
after  the  wound  is  received.  This  is  hard  service  for 
both  cars  and  drivers,  and  it  is  done  in  turn  for  five 
days  at  a  time;  then  we  return  to  St.  Maurice  to 
care  for  the  cars  and  rest;  the  ordinary  valley  serv- 
ice is  regarded  by  us  as  rest  after  the  spell  on  the 
hills. 

"Car  170  (the  E.  J.  de  Coppet  Car)  has  been 
doing  well  on  this  strenuous  work.  The  two  back 
fenders  have  been  removed,  one  by  a  rock  in  passing 
an  ammunition  wagon,  and  the  other  by  one  of  the 
famous  "75's"  going  down  the  hill. 

"The  men  appreciate  it.  Often,  back  in  France, 
we  are  trailed  as  the  'voitures'  they  have  seen  at  Mitt- 
lach,  or  as  the  car  which  brought  a  comrade  back. 
They  express  curiosity  as  to  our  exact  military 
status.     The  usual  thing  when  we  explain  that  we 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS    37 

are  volunteers  is  for  them  to  say  "chic."  When  they 
learn  that  the  cars  are  given  by  men  in  the  United 
States  whose  sympathy  is  with  them,  they  nod  ap- 
proval." 

Another  man  writes  of  the  condition  of  the  serv- 
ice: 

"At  Chenimenil,  the  headquarters  of  the  automo- 
bile service  for  this  section,  we  reported  to  Captain 
Arboux,  and  were  informed  by  him  of  the  terms 
on  which  he  had  decided  to  accept  our  services.  We 
were  to  draw  our  food,  wine,  tobacco,  automobile 
supplies,  such  as  tires,  oil,  gasoline,  from  the  Sev- 
enth Army,  as  well  as  our  lodging,  and  one  sou  a 
day  as  pay.  In  short,  we  were  to  be  treated  exactly 
as  the  French  Ambulance  sections,  and  to  be  sub- 
ject to  the  same  discipline." 

Rations  consist  of  a  portion  of  meat,  hard  bread 
— baked  some  weeks  previously — rice,  beans,  maca- 
roni or  potatoes,  a  lump  of  grease  for  cooking,  coffee, 
sugar  and  a  little  wine.  For  soldiers  on  duty  there 
are  field  kitchens,  fire  and  boilers  running  on  wheels. 
But  billeted  men  have  their  food  cooked  by  some 
village  woman,  or  a  group  build  wood  fires  against 
a  wall.  Our  men  made  arrangements  to  mess  at  a 
restaurant. 

The  work  was  so  continuous  that  some  of  the  men 
drove  for  as  long  as  fifty  hours  without  sleep,  and 


38     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

no  one  had  time  for  more  than  an  occasional  nap 
of  an  hour  and  a  half. 

After  the  battle  of  Hartmannsweilerkopf  the  sec- 
tion was  decorated  as  a  whole,  and  twelve  men  in- 
dividually were  decorated.  Lovering  Hill  of  Har- 
vard has  been  in  charge  of  this  section.  He  has 
received  two  citations,  two  Croix  de  Guerre,  which 
he  doesn't  wear,  because  he  knows  that  the  Western 
Front  is  full  of  good  men  who  have  not  been  deco- 
rated. The  boys  formed  "The  Harvard  Club  of 
Alsace  Reconquise,"  and  had  Harvard  Alumni  Din- 
ners when  the  fighting  eased  up. 

"I  think  that  we  have  saved  the  wounded  many 
hours  of  suffering,"  writes  Henry  M.  Suckley  of 
Harvard,  1910.  In  that  quiet  statement  lies  the 
spirit  of  the  work  done  by  the  American  Field  Serv- 
ice. 

From  the  head  of  the  Valley  of  the  Fecht,  over 
10  miles  of  mountain,  5  up  and  5  down,  to  Krut  on 
the  other  side — that  has  been  the  run. 

W.  K.  H.  Emerson,  Jr.,  says: 

"Once  I  went  over  a  bank  in  an  attempt  to  pass 
a  convoy  wagon  at  night  without  a  headlight,  such 
light  being  forbidden  over  part  of  the  Mitlach  road. 
I  was  lucky  enough  to  lean  up  against  a  tree  before 
slipping  very  far  over  the  bank,  and  within  ten  min- 
utes ten  soldiers  had  lifted  the  machine,  and  put 
it  back  on  the  road,  ready  to  start.     Nothing  was 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS    39 

wrong  but  the  loss  of  one  sidelight,  and  the  car  went 
better  than  before.  There  was  great  merriment 
among  the  men  who  helped  to  put  it  on  the  road." 

After  four  months  the  section  had  its  barracks,  at 
the  4,000-foot  level,  blown  down  by  a  gale.  So 
they  used  a  new  road.  Suckley  writes  of  finding 
two  huge  trees  across  the  path. 

"I  had  three  wounded  men  in  the  car,  whom  I 
was  hurrying  to  the  hospital.  I  walked  down  two 
miles  to  get  some  men  at  a  camp  of  engineers,  the 
road  being  too  narrow  to  permit  turning.  There  is 
a  new  service  to  the  famous  Hartmannsweilerkopf, 
or,  rather,  within  half  a  mile  of  this  most  southerly 
mount  contested  by  the  Germans.  For  three  miles 
it  is  cut  out  of  the  solid  rock,  just  wide  enough  for 
one  of  our  cars  to  pass.  You  can  imagine  the  joys 
of  this  drive  on  a  dark  night  when  you  have  to  ex- 
tinguish all  lights,  and  when  the  speed  of  the  car 
cannot  be  reduced  for  fear  of  not  making  the  grades. 
The  first  aid  post,  called  Silberloch,  is  but  200  or 
300  yards  from  the  famous  crest  which  has  been 
the  scene  of  many  fierce  combats.  The  bursting  of 
shells  has  taken  every  bit  of  foliage  from  the  wooded 
crest,  carried  pines  to  the  ground,  so  that  only  a 
few  splintered  stumps  stick  up  here  and  there.  At 
the  post  no  one  dares  show  himself  in  the  open.  All 
life  is  subterranean  in  bomb-proofs  covered  by  five 
feet  of  timber.    The  road  is  concealed  everywhere 


40     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

by  screens,  and  the  sound  of  a  motor  may  bring  a 
hail  of  shells  down  on  your  head.  The  stretcher 
bearers  are  so  used  to  meeting  death  in  its  worst 
forms — ^by  burning  oil,  by  shell  fragments,  by  suf- 
focating shells — that  they  have  grown  to  look  at  it 
smilingly," 

It  is  a  St.  Paul's  School  car  that  operates  there. 

"Another  time  the  run  was  up  to  an  artillery  post 
in  the  mountains.  The  road  was  extremely  steep 
near  the  top,  and  covered  with  gravel.  It  was  only 
by  hard  effort  that  a  dozen  men  could  push  the  car 
up.  We  ran  to  the  communicating  trench,  where 
they  had  the  man  waiting.  He  was  wounded  in  the 
abdomen,  and  in  great  pain.  We  started  down  over 
the  terrible  road;  at  every  pebble  he  would  groan. 
When  we  reached  the  worst  place  of  all,  where  the 
road  had  recently  been  mended  with  unbroken  stones, 
his  groans  began  to  grow  fainter.  They  ceased,  and, 
stopping,  we  found  that  he  was  dead.  But  there 
had  been  a  chance  of  saving  his  life.  A  larger  car 
could  not  have  gone  up.  A  wagon  or  a  mule  would 
have  caused  his  death  almost  immediately. 

"On  one  of  our  hills  in  winter  a  team  of  six  Red 
Cross  men  was  kept  on  duty  waiting  for  our  ambu- 
lance to  come  along.  The  cars  would  go  as  far  as 
possible  up  the  incline,  and  before  they  lost  speed 
would  be  practically  carried  to  the  crest  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  pushers — mules,  with  their  drivers 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS    ^v 

hanging  on  the  beasts'  tails  to  make  the  ascent  easier. 
Strapped  on  these  animals  are  barbed  wire  and  hand- 
grenades,  red  wine  and  sections  of  the  army  portable 
houses." 

Such  is  winter  in  Alsace. 

"Luke  Doyle  had  driven  his  car  to  the  entrance  of 
the  Hartmanns  trenches  and  our  last  post,  when  a 
heavy  bombardment  forced  every  one  to  make  for 
the  bomb-proof.  Several  men  were  wounded  and 
he  came  out  to  crank  his  car  and  carry  them  off  when 
he  was  ordered  back  to  safety.  A  few  moments  later 
a  shell  landed  close  to  the  'abri.'  It  struck  a  man 
and  killed  him.  A  flying  piece  reached  Doyle  and 
entered  his  elbow.  Another  of  our  section,  Douglas, 
arrived,  and  was  knocked  flat  by  a  bursting  shell. 
He  rose,  put  Doyle  in  his  car  and  drove  him  up  the 
road  to  safety." 

Another  time,  Jack  Clark  writes : 

"Car  161  still  lives  up  to  her  reputation.  Yester- 
day, in  a  blizzard,  she  was  blown  off  the  road  be- 
tween two  trees,  over  three  piles  of  rock,  through  a 
fence  and  into  a  ditch.  Three  men  and  a  horse  re- 
moved her  from  the  pasture,  and  she  went  on  as 
ever." 

Car  163  had  13  cases  of  tire  trouble  in  two  weeks. 
The  whole  success  of  the  adventure  depends  on  the 
condition  of  the  cars.  So  through  all  the  narrative 
of  shell-fire  and  suffering  men  recurs  the  theme  of 


42     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

roads  and  tires,  axle-trouble  and  hill-grades.  The 
adventure  of  the  car  itself  is  as  real  as  that  of  the 
man.  The  car  becomes  a  personality  to  the  man  at 
the  wheel,  just  as  the  locomotive  is  to  the  engineer. 
It  isn't  any  old  car.  It  is  the  little  Ford,  Number 
121,  given  by  Mrs.  Richard  Trowbridge  of  Rox- 
bury,  Mass.  In  that  particular  car  you  have  car- 
ried 500  wounded  men,  you  have  gone  into  the  ditch, 
stuck  in  the  mud,  and  scurried  under  shell-hre,  shrap- 
nel has  torn  the  cover,  and  there  is  the  mark  of  a 
rifle-bullet  on  the  wheel-spoke.  You  have  slept  at 
the  wheel  and  in  the  chassis,  after  hours  of  work. 
You  have  eaten  luncheons  for  two  months  on  the 
front  seat.  The  reader  must  not  get  very  far  away 
from  the  ambulance-car  in  making  his  mental  pic- 
ture of  the  experience  of  the  boys  in  North  France, 
and  he  must  not  object  if  all  through  this  chapter 
he  gets  the  smell  of  grease  and  petrol,  and  if  the 
explosions  are  tires  as  often  as  shells.  Because  that 
is  the  way  it  is  at  the  front.  These  boys  never  take 
their  eyes  from  the  road  and  the  car.  So  why  should 
we  who  read  of  them  *? 

There  is  a  certain  Detroit  manufacturer  who  has 
a  large  and  legitimate  advertisement  coming  to  him. 
If  he  will  collect  the  hundred  fervid  and  humorous 
comments  written  into  the  records  of  the  field  serv- 
ice he  will  have  a  publicity  pamphlet  which  will  out- 
live "A  Message  to  Garcia."     For  this  job  of  the 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS    43 

jitneys  is  more  than  carrying  orders;  it  is  bringing 
wounded  men  over  impossible  routes,  where  four 
wheels  and  a  motor  were  never  supposed  to  go.  Mr. 
Ford  with  his  ship  accomplished  nothing,  but  Mr. 
Ford  with  his  cars  has  done  much  in  getting  the  boys 
out  of  the  trenches.  They  would  have  lain  there 
wounded  for  an  hour,  two  hours,  in  the  Alsace  dis- 
trict for  twelve  hours  longer,  if  his  nimble  jitneys 
had  not  chugged  up  to  the  boyau  and  dressing  station. 

"We  expected  to  be  kept  rolling  all  night."  To 
"keep  rolling"  is  their  phrase  for  driving  the  car. 

"The  next  sixty  hours  were  not  divided  into  days 
for  us.  We  ran  steadily,  not  stopping  for  meals  or 
sleep  except  during  the  brief  pauses  in  the  stream 
of  wounded.  Except  for  one  memorable  and  enor- 
mous breakfast  at  the  end  of  the  first  24  hours,  I 
ate  while  driving,  steering  with  one  hand,  holding 
bread  and  cheese  in  the  other.  The  first  lull  I  slept 
an  hour  and  a  half,  the  second  night  there  was  no 
lull  and  I  drove  until  I  went  to  sleep  several  times 
at  the  wheel.  Then  I  took  three  hours'  rest  and 
went  on.  Gasoline,  oil  and  carbide  ran  low;  we  used 
all  our  spare  tires.  One  of  our  men  ran  into  a  ditch 
with  three  seriously  wounded  soldiers,  and  upset. 
Another  man  broke  his  rear  axle.  During  the  two 
and  one-half  days  of  the  attack,  over  250  wounded 
were  moved  by  our  15  cars  a  distance  of  40  kilo- 
meters." 


44     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Ambulance  work  depends  on  the  supply  of  gaso- 
line, oil,  carbide  and  spare  parts,  solid  rations  and 
sleep.  Success  rests  in  patching  tires,  scraping  car- 
bon and  changing  springs.  Any  idea  of  ambulance 
work  is  off  the  mark  that  thinks  it  a  succession  of 
San  Juan  charges.  It  is  hard,  unpicturesque  work, 
with  an  occasional  fifteen  minutes  of  tension. 

"A  stretcher  makes  a  serviceable  bed,  and,  warmly 
wrapped  in  blankets,  one  can  sleep  very  comfortably 
in  an  ambulance." 

"A  climb  of  800  meters  in  less  than  10  kilometers 
involves  mechanical  stress." 

"The  unique  spring  suspension  and  light  body 
construction  make  our  cars  the  most  comfortable  for 
the  wounded  of  all  the  types  in  service." 

A  mechanical  detail — but  it  is  in  these  bits  of 
ingenious  mechanical  adaptation  to  human  needs 
that  the  American  contribution  has  been  made.  It 
isn't  half  enough  in  a  machine-made  war  to  be  dash- 
ing and  picturesque.  You  must  fight  destructive  ma- 
chinery with  still  cleverer  engines  of  relief.  The  in- 
ventive brain  must  operate  as  well  as  the  kind  heart 
and  the  spirit  of  fearlessness.  It  is  in  the  combina- 
tion of  courage  and  mechanical  versatility  that  the 
best  of  the  American  quality  has  been  revealed. 

Flashes  of  the  soldier  life  are  given  by  the  boys. 
Canned  beef  is  called  by  the  poilu  "singe,"  or 
monkey  meat. 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS    45 

"All  that  is  impossible  is  explained  by  a  simple 
'c'est  la  guerre.'  Why  else  blindly  scrape  one's  way 
past  a  creaking  truck  of  shells,  testing  20  horses,  two 
abreast,  steaming  in  their  own  cloud  of  sweaty 
vapor?  Why  else  descend  slopes  with  every  brake 
afire,  with  three  human  bodies  as  cargo,  where  a 
broken  drive  shaft  leaves  but  one  instantaneous 
tv/ist  of  the  wheel  for  salvation,  a  thrust  straight 
into  the  bank,  smashing  the  car  but  saving  its  load? 
'C'est  la  guerre.'  " 

"'Chasseurs  Alpines':  a  short,  dark-blue  jacket, 
gray  trousers,  spiral  puttees,  and  the  jaunty  soft  hat 
'berets.'    These  are  the  famous  'blue  devils.'  " 

"I,  who  came  for  four  months  and  have  been 
working  eight,  can  assure  any  one  who  is  consider- 
ing joining  the  American  Ambulance  that  he  will 
go  home  with  a  feeling  of  great  satisfaction  at  hav- 
ing been  able  to  help  out  a  little  a  nation  that  appre- 
ciates it,  and  that  is  bearing  the  brunt  of  the  fight- 
ing on  the  Western  Front." 

"Among  the  wounded  that  our  cars  carried,  was 
the  General  of  the  Division — General  Serret" — 
brought  down  from  the  height  he  had  held  to  be 
amputated  and  to  die. 

Another  section  of  twenty-four  cars  started  in  at 
Esternay  at  the  time  of  the  spring  freshets,  when 
life  was  chilly  and  wet.  Eleven  received  individ- 
ually the  Croix  de  Guerre.    This  section  served  two 


46    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

divisions  of  the  second  French  Army  and  had  a 
battle  front  of  from  seven  to  ten  miles — the  St. 
Mihiel  sector,  a  region  subject  to  artillery  fire.  It 
has  been  commanded  by  Oliver  Hazard  Perry,  a 
descendant  of  Commodore  Perry. 

They  had  1,800  wounded  a  week,  and  a  mileage 
of  5,000  kilometers. 

"Sudbury  broke  his  arm  cranking,  this  morning." 

The  service  was  brisk.  Shroder  with  two  wounded 
was  rounding  a  corner  when  a  shell  hit  so  close  as 
to  jump  his  car  up.  One  car  came  in  from  service 
in  July  with  23  shrapnel  holes.  On  July  8,  within 
24  hours,  the  boys  of  this  section  carried  997 
wounded. 

"During  the  bombardment  the  trenches  were  so 
smashed  by  continuous  fire  as  to  cease  to  be  trenches : 
the  men  lay  in  holes  in  the  ground.  They  would 
come  down  when  relieved,  dazed  and  sometimes 
weeping,  yet  they  held  their  ground."  Long  waits 
and  frantic  activity :  dullness  and  horror  alternating. 
Nine  members  of  the  ambulances  were  in  the  house 
against  which  a  shell  exploded.  A  soldier  was  killed 
and  one  mortally  wounded.  The  Americans  were 
thrown  in  a  heap  on  the  floor.  "Now,  the  section 
occupies  a  large  house  just  outside  the  town.  There 
is  a  large  hole  in  the  garden  where  a  shell  alighted 
soon  after  this  became  our  new  quarters;  but  the 
good  fortune  of  the  Ambulance  is  with  it  still." 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS    47 

"To  Clos  Bois.  Sharp  shrapnel  fire.  Small 
branches  and  leaves  showered  down  in  the  wood.  It 
was  necessary  for  two  of  our  men,  whose  ambu- 
lances stood  in  the  open  to  expose  themselves  in 
putting  stretchers  in  the  cars.  Great  courage  was 
displayed  by  McConnell,  who  was  active  in  this 
work  even  when  not  required  to  be  so,  and  who 
was  hit  in  the  back  by  a  fragment  of  shell,  sustain- 
ing, however,  no  further  injury  than  a  bad  bruise. 
Mention  should  be  made  of  Martin,  who  drove  away 
with  his  car  full  of  wounded  while  the  ifiring  was 
still  going  on,  a  bullet  mark  in  his  steering-gear, 
and  a  spare  tire  on  the  roof  punctured." 

The  order  of  the  day,  July  22,  cited  the  American 
section,  "Composed  of  volunteers,  friends  of  our 
country." 

Here  are  a  half  dozen  impressions  that  come  to 
the  men  in  the  course  of  their  work. 

"I  counted  one  evening  fifteen  balls,  within  a 
space  of  a  dozen  yards  of  the  doorway  where  I  was 
sheltering." 

"The  dark  houses,  deserted  streets,  the  dim  shape 
of  a  sentry,  the  night  scents  of  the  fields" — these 
are  what  the  evening  run  reveals. 

"On  the  one  hand  are  the  trenches  where  men 
live  in  conditions  which  must  resemble  those  of  the 
cave  men:  dug  into  the  earth,  and  with  danger  of 
death  as  a  daily  habit;  on  the  other,  within  half  an 


48     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

hour's  walk,  most  of  the  comforts  of  civilization. 
We  come  down  from  the  work  of  carrying  hundreds 
of  mangled  men,  and  in  the  evening  sit  eating  straw- 
berries and  cake  in  a  pretty  drawing-room." 

"The  wounded  had  a  curiously  unconcerned  ap- 
pearance, as  though  having  been  hit  already  they 
are  immune." 

"Our  young  heroes "     Yes,  they  are  all  of 

that,  fearless,  and  swift  to  act.  But  they  are  prac- 
tical heroes — good  mechanicians,  ready  to  lend  a 
hand  on  any  lowly  job  of  washing  a  stretcher  or 
shifting  furniture.  I  like  the  rough-neck  way  of 
the  American  Ambulance.  There  has  been  a  snob- 
bish attempt  made  to  describe  these  young  workers 
as  belonging  to  our  "best  families,"  representing  the 
"elite"  of  America,  That  is  to  miss  the  point  of 
the  work.  It  is  democratic  service.  Work  hard  and 
you  are  a  popular  member  of  the  community.  This 
Lorraine  section  went  to  Verdun,  and  Robert  Toms 
of  Marion,  Iowa,  wrote  me: 

"Everybody  has  the  right  spirit,  and  we  are  all 
working  together.  We  are  living  the  real  army 
life — sleeping  out  of  doors  and  eating  in  a  barn." 

One  of  the  Verdun  sections  was  sent  to  Bar-le-Duc 
recently  where  a  bombardment  by  fourteen  German 
aeroplanes  was  under  way.  Forty  persons  were 
killed  and  160  injured.  The  boys  cruised  around 
the  streets  during  the  overhead  shelling  of  forty- 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS    49 

five  minutes,  picking  up  the  dead  and  wounded. 
Almost  all  the  cars  were  hit  by  fragments  of  shell. 
This  prompt  aid  under  fire  endeared  the  American 
Ambulance  to  the  inhabitants  of  that  town.  Next 
day  one  of  the  drivers  took  his  coat  to  a  tailor  for 
repair.  The  man  refused  to  accept  any  pay  from 
one  who  had  helped  his  city. 

A  few  of  us  were  sitting  around  quietly  one  day 
when  a  French  sous-officer  entered,  in  a  condition 
of  what  seems  to  our  inarticulate  Northern  stolidity 
as  excitement,  but  what  in  reality  is  merely  clear 
expression  of  warm  emotion.     He  said: 

"The  people  of  Bar-le-Duc  are  grateful  for  what 
the  Americans  have  done.  Your  work  was  excellent, 
wonderful.     We  will  not  forget  it." 

This  work  of  the  American  Ambulance  Field 
Service  is  the  most  brilliant,  the  most  widely  known 
of  any  we  are  doing  in  France.  As  we  motored 
through  Lorraine,  Major  Humbert,  brother  of  the 
Commanding  General  of  the  Third  Division,  stopped 
three  of  us,  Americans,  and  said  he  wished  to  tell 
us,  as  spokesman  to  our  country,  that  the  American 
Ambulance  Service  gave  great  satisfaction  to  the 
French  Army.  "It  is  courageous  and  useful.  We 
thank  you." 

A  Flanders  section  was  sent  out,  ten  cars  at  first. 
They  served  at  the  Second  Battle  of  the  Yser,  when 
gas  was  used  for  the  first  time  by  the  enemy.     It  is 


so    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

a  flat  country  and  they  ran  close  to  the  battle-front. 
They  were  billeted  at  Elverdinghe  till  the  village 
crumbled  under  shell  fire. 

The  work  was  in  part  "cleaning  plugs  and  cylin- 
ders, tightening  nuts  and  bolts,  oiling  and  greasing, 
washing  our  little  cars  just  as  though  they  were  a 
lot  of  dirty  kiddies."  The  cars  receive  pet  names 
of  Susan,  and  Beatrice,  and  The  Contagious  Bus. 
The  Contagious  Bus,  Car  82,  driven  by  Hayden,  car- 
ried 187  contagious  cases  between  March  29  and 
May  12,  and  a  total  of  980  men,  covering  2,084  ^i^°" 
meters.  In  one  day  95  men  were  transported  to  the 
hospitals  in  that  one  car. 

"At  2.30  in  the  afternoon  a  call  came  from  the 
'Trois  Chemins'  poste,  and  in  answering  it  Day 
and  Brown  had  a  close  call.  While  on  the  road  to 
the  poste,  at  one  place  in  view  of  the  German 
trenches,  they  were  caught  in  a  bombardment,  seven 
shells  striking  within  100  yards  of  the  machine. 
Two  or  three  days  later,  Latimer  halted  his  machine 
at  the  end  of  the  road,  and  walked  down  to  the  poste 
with  the  'Medecin  Auxiliare.'  Shrapnel  began  to 
break  near  them  and  they  were  forced  to  put  in  the 
next  few  minutes  in  a  ditch.  They  were  forced  to 
lie  down  five  times  that  morning  in  this  ditch,  half 
full  of  mud  and  water.  The  red-headed  girls  still 
continue  to  keep  open  their  little  store  right  near 
the  church  on  the  main  street.     Downs  spent  the 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS     51 

night  on  the  road  where  he  had  dropped  out  with  a 
broken  transmission.  A  fire  caused  by  the  heating 
apparatus  broke  out  in  Ned  Townsend's  car.  It 
flamed  out  suddenly,  and  it  was  too  late  to  save  even 
his  personal  belongings." 

There  are  all  kinds  of  interludes  in  the  work. 
Here  is  a  Christmas  note,  "Dec.  25.  The  section 
had  its  Christmas  dinner  at  5  o'clock.  Kenyon  plays 
the  violin  very  well,  and  Day  and  Downs  are  at 
home  with  the  piano.  Toasts  were  drunk  all  the 
way  from  Theodore  Roosevelt  to  'The  Folks  at 
Home.'  After  dinner  impromptu  theatricals,  Frank- 
lin and  White's  dance  taking  the  cake." 

"Car  wanted  for  Poste  de  Secours  No.  1,  200  yards 
from  trenches,  eight  kilometers  from  our  post.  The 
car  rocks  from  shell  holes.  Watch  for  the  round 
black  spots." 

General  Putz,  commanding  the  Detachement 
d'Armee  de  Belgique,  states:  "In  spite  of  the  bom- 
bardment of  Elverdinghe,  of  the  roads  leading  to  this 
village,  and  of  the  Ambulance  itself,  this  evacuation 
has  been  effected  night  and  day  without  interruption. 
I  cannot  too  highly  praise  the  courage  and  devotion 
shown  by  the  personnel  of  the  section." 

One  of  the  men  writes:  "From  3  a.m.  April  22 
until  7.30  p.m.  April  26,  five  cars  on  duty.  In 
those  four  days  each  man  got  seven  hours'  sleep, 
sitting  at  the  wheel,  or  an  hour  on  a  hospital  bed." 


52     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Of  one  sudden  shell-flurr}' :  "We  stayed  still  for 
fifteen  minutes,  I  smoking  furiously,  and  the  Eng- 
lish nurse  singing.  Little  'Khaki,'  the  squad's  pet 
dog,  lay  shaking." 

Five  days  of  continuous  heavy  work  exhausted 
them,  and  half  of  the  corps  was  sent  to  Dunkirk 
"en  repos."  On  the  day  of  their  arrival  shells  came 
in  from  a  distance  of  twenty-one  miles,  twenty  shells 
at  intervals  of  half  an  hour.  They  took  a  minute 
and  a  half  to  arrive.  The  French  outposts  at  the 
German  lines  telephoned  that  one  was  on  its  way, 
and  the  sirens  of  Dunkirk,  twenty-one  miles  away, 
blew  a  warning.  This  gave  the  inhabitants  a  minute 
in  which  to  dive  into  their  cellars.  The  American 
Ambulances  were  the  only  cars  left  in  the  town.  On 
the  sound  of  the  siren  the  boys  headed  for  the 
Grand  Place,  and,  as  soon  as  they  saw  the  cloud  of 
dust,  they  drove  into  it. 

As  one  of  them  describes  it : 

"W^e  spent  the  next  two  hours  cruising  slowly 
about  the  streets,  waiting  for  the  next  shells  to  come, 
and  then  going  to  see  if  any  one  had  been  hit.  I 
had  three  dead  men  and  ten  terribly  wounded — 
soldiers,  civilians,  women.  The  next  day  I  was  glad 
to  be  off  for  the  quiet  front  where  things  happen  in 
the  open,  and  women  and  children  are  not  mur- 
dered." 


THE  FORD  CAR  AND  ITS  DRIVERS    53 

"Seven  shells  fell  within  a  radius  of  200  yards  of 
the  cars,  with  pieces  of  brick  and  hot  splinters." 

A  French  official  said  of  the  Dunkirk  bombard- 
ment: 

"I  was  at  most  of  the  scenes,  but  always  found 
one  of  your  ambulances  before  me." 

A  Moroccan  lay  grievously  wounded  in  a  Dun- 
kirk hospital.  One  of  our  boys  sat  down  beside  the 
cot. 

"Touchez  le  main,"  said  the  wounded  man,  feebly. 
He  was  lonely. 

The  boys  stayed  with  him  for  a  time.  The  man 
was  too  far  spent  to  talk,  but  every  little  while  he 
said: 

"Touchez  le  main." 

Through  the  darkness  of  his  pain,  he  knew  that 
he  had  a  companion  there.  The  young  foreigner  at 
his  side  was  a  friend,  and  cared  that  he  suffered. 
It  is  difficult  to  put  in  public  print  what  one  comes 
to  know  about  these  young  men  of  ours,  for  they 
are  giving  something  besides  efficient  driving.  I 
have  seen  men  like  Bob  Toms  at  work,  and  I  know 
that  every  jolt  of  the  road  hurts  them  because  it 
hurts  their  wounded  soldier. 

A  young  millionaire  who  has  been  driving  up  in 
the  Alsace  district,  remarked  the  other  day : 

"I  never  used  to  do  anything,  but  I  won't  be  able 
to  live  like  that  after  the  war.     The  pleasantest 


54     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

thing  that  is  going  to  happen  to  me  when  this  thing 
is  over  will  be  to  go  to  the  telephone  in  New  York 
and  call  up  Francois. 

"  'That  you,  Frangois"?  Come  and  let's  have  din- 
ner together  and  talk  over  the  big  fight.' 

"Francois  is  a  Chasseur  Alpin.  I've  been  seeing 
him  up  on  the  mountain.  Frangois  is  the  second 
cook  at  the  Knickerbocker  Hotel,  and  the  finest 
gentleman  I  ever  knew." 


IV 


THE  AMERICANS  AT  VERDUN 

THE  French  have  been  massed  at  Verdun  in 
the  decisive  battle  of  the  war.  So  were 
the  Americans.  Our  little  group  of  ambu- 
lance drivers  were  called  from  the  other  points  of 
the  350-mile  line,  and  five  sections  of  the  American 
Ambulance  Field  Service  and  the  Harjes  and  the 
Norton  Corps  work  from  ten  up  to  twenty  hours  of 
the  day  bringing  in  their  comrades,  the  French 
wounded.  One  hundred  and  twenty  of  our  cars  and 
120  of  our  boys  in  the  field  service  were  in  the  sector, 
under  constant  shell-fire.  Several  were  grievously 
wounded.  Others  were  touched.  A  dozen  of  the 
cars  were  shot  up  with  shrapnel  and  slivers  of 
explosive  shell. 

Will  Irwin  and  I  went  up  with  Piatt  Andrew, 
head  of  the  field  service,  to  see  the  young  Americans 
at  work.  We  left  Paris  on  July  1  in  a  motor  car. 
Our  chauffeur  was  Philibert,  Eighth  Duke  of  Cler- 
mont-Tonnerre,  Fifth  Prince  of  the  name,  Tenth 
Marquess    of    Cruzy    and    Vauvillars,    Forty-fifth 

55 


56     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Count  of  the  name,  Sixteenth  Viscount  of  Tallart, 
Twenty-first  Baron  of  Clemiont  en  Viennois,  Ancien 
Pair  de  France,  descendant  of  the  Seigneur  of  Saint 
Geoire.  For  nine  centuries  his  family  has  been 
famous.  The  Duke  is  a  kindly,  middle-aged  aristo- 
crat, who  is  very  helpful  to  the  American  Field 
Service.  He  takes  the  boys  on  visits  to  some  one 
of  his  collection  of  chateaus.  He  drives  Piatt 
Andrew  on  his  tours  of  inspection.  He  is  a  gifted 
and  furious  driver,  and  on  our  dash  from  Paris  to 
Verdun  he  burned  up  a  couple  of  tires.  It  was  a 
genial  thing  to  see  him,  caked  with  dust  on  face  and 
clothing,  tinkering  the  wheel.  To  be  served  by  one 
of  the  oldest  families  in  Europe  was  a  novel  ex- 
perience for  Irwin  and  me,  though  actually  what  the 
Duke  was  doing  in  his  democratic  way  is  being  done 
almost  universally  by  the  "high-born"  of  France. 
Up  through  thousands  of  transports,  thousands  of 
horses  and  tens  of  thousands  of  men,  we  steered  our 
course  to  Lovering  Hill's  section  of  the  American 
Field  Service. 

There  on  the  hillside,  to  the  west  of  Verdun,  were 
the  boys  and  their  cars.  It  was  daytime,  so  they 
were  resting.  All  work  is  night  work.  They  were 
muddy,  unshaved,  weary.  A  couple  of  baseball 
gloves  were  lying  around.  One  of  the  boys  was  re- 
pairing a  car  that  had  collided  with  a  tree.  There 
was  mud  on  all  the  cars,  and  blood  on  the  inner  side 


THE  AMERICANS  AT  VERDUN       57 

of  one  car.  For  ten  nights  they  have  been  making 
one  of  the  hottest  ambulance  runs  of  the  war. 

It  was  on  that  run  that  William  Notle)^  Barber, 
of  Toledo,  Ohio,  was  shot  through  the  back.  The 
shell  fragment  tore  a  long,  jagged  rent  in  his  khaki 
army  coat,  with  a  circle  of  blood  around  the  rip, 
entered  the  back  and  lay  against  the  lung  and  stom- 
ach. The  car  was  shattered.  The  next  man  found 
him.  The  wrecked  car  still  stood  on  the  road  with 
a  dead  man  in  it,  the  wounded  soldier  whom  he  was 
bringing  back.  We  saw  Barber  at  the  field  hospital. 
He  had  been  operated  on  for  the  second  time.  He 
showed  us  the  quarter  inch  of  metal  which  the  sur- 
geon had  just  taken  out,  the  second  piece  to  be  re- 
moved.   He  has  won  the  Medaille  Militaire. 

This  section  needed  no  initiation.  They  had  long 
served  at  Hartmannsweilerkopf  in  the  Alsace  fight- 
ing, and  of  their  number  Hall  was  killed.  This  ex- 
perience at  Verdun  is  a  continuation  of  the  danger- 
ous, brilliant  work  they  have  carried  on  for  sixteen 
months.  These  men  are  veterans  in  service,  though 
youngsters  in  years.  By  their  shredded  cars  and 
the  blood  they  have  spilled  they  have  earned  the 
right  to  be  ranked  next  to  soldiers  of  the  line. 

They  gave  me  the  impression  of  having  been 
through  one  of  the  great  experiences  of  life.  There 
was  a  tired  but  victorious  sense  they  carried,  of  men 
that  had  done  honest  service. 


58     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

As  we  sat  on  the  grass  and  looked  out  on  a  sky- 
full  of  observation  balloons  and  aeroplanes,  a  very 
good-looking  young  man  walked  up.  Only  one 
thing  about  his  make-up  was  marred,  and  that  was 
his  nose — a  streak  of  red  ran  across  the  bridge. 

"Shrapnel,"  he  said,  as  he  saw  me  looking.  "And 
it  seems  a  pity,  too.  I  spent  $600  on  that  nose,  just 
before  I  came  over  here.  They  burned  it,  cauterized 
it,  wired  it,  knifed  it,  and  pronounced  it  a  thorough 
job.  And  as  soon  as  it  was  cleaned  up,  it  came  over 
here  into  powder  and  dust  and  got  messed  up  by 
shrapnel.  Now  the  big  $600  job  will  have  to  be 
done  over  again." 

This  young  man  is  Waldo  Pierce,  the  artist.  It 
was  he  who  once  started  on  a  trip  to  Europe  with  a 
friend,  but  didn't  like  the  first  meal,  so  jumped  over- 
board and  swam  back.  He  sailed  by  the  next  boat, 
and  arrived  on  the  other  side  to  find  his  friend  in 
trouble  for  his  disappearance. 

Through  the  side  of  Pierce's  coat,  just  at  the 
pocket,  and  just  over  the  heart,  I  saw  a  bullet  hole. 

"Pretty  stagey,  isn't  it?"  he  explained.  "If  it 
had  been  a  ragged,  irregular  hole,  somewhere  else, 
say  at  the  elbow,  it  would  have  been  all  right.  But 
this  neat  little  hole  just  at  the  vital  spot  is  conven- 
tional stuff.  It  looks  like  the  barn  door,  and  five 
yards  away. 

"And  this  is  worse  yet,"  he  added,  as  he  took  out 


THE  AMERICANS  AT  VERDUN       59 

from  the  inner  breast  pocket  a  brown  leather  wallet. 
Through  one  flap  the  same  shrapnel  bullet  had  pene- 
trated. Together,  coat  and  wallet  had  saved  this 
young  man's  life. 

"That's  the  sort  of  thing  that  wouldn't  go  any- 
where," Pierce  went  on.  He  is  a  Maine  man,  and 
has  a  pleasant  drawl. 

Wheeler's  car  was  shot  through,  the  slatting 
ripped  at  the  driver's  place,  the  sides  a  mess.  A  man 
on  his  right  and  a  man  at  his  left  were  killed.  The 
stuff  passed  over  his  head  as  he  knelt  before  a  tire. 
The  boys  have  been  playing  in  luck.  A  dozen  fatali- 
ties were  due  them  in  the  June  drive  at  Verdun. 
This  was  the  fiercest  offensive  of  the  four  months, 
and  they  stood  up  to  it. 

We  were  looking  west,  and  as  we  looked  an  aero- 
plane burst  into  flames.  As  it  fell,  it  left  a  trail  of 
black  smoke,  funnel  shaped,  and  always  at  the  point 
of  that  funnel  the  bright  spark,  and  at  the  heart  of 
that  spark  a  man  burning  to  death.  The  spark  de- 
scended rather  slowly,  with  a  spiraling  movement, 
and  trailing  the  heavy  smoke.  It  burned  brightly 
all  the  way  to  the  horizon  line,  where  it  seemed  to 
continue  for  a  moment,  like  a  setting  sun  on  the 
earth's  rim.  Then  it  puffed  out,  and  only  the  smoke 
in  the  sky  was  left.  In  another  moment  the  light 
wind  had  shredded  the  smoke  away. 

It  was  5  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  we  had  been 


6o    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

coming  from  Paris  at  full  tilt  to  get  to  the  Etat 
Major  and  report  ourselves.  So,  after  watering  the 
car  and  shaking  hands  all  around,  we  started  off, 
and  straightway  the  rear  left  tire  went  flat,  and  its 
successor  went  flat,  and  for  the  third  time  it  went 
flat.  So  we  crawled  to  a  village  at  midnight,  and 
laid  by  for  repairs. 

At  3  a.m.  we  rose.  There  was  no  dressing  to  be 
done,  as  we  had  rested  in  our  clothes.  We  ran  out 
past  the  city  of  Verdun  on  the  road  going  east  to 
Fort  de  Tavannes.  Wheat  was  ripening  to  the  full 
crop  in  a  hundred  fields  about  us.  All  the  birds  were 
singing.  The  pleasant  stir  and  fullness  of  summer 
were  coming  down  the  air. 

Then  on  a  sudden  the  famous  Tier  de  Barrage 
broke  out — the  deadly  barrier  of  fire  that  crumbles 
a  line  of  trenches  as  a  child  pokes  in  an  ant  hill : 
the  fire  that  covers  an  advance  and  withers  an  enemy 
attack.  Here  was  what  I  had  been  waiting  for 
through  twenty-one  months  of  war.  I  had  caught 
snatches  of  it  at  a  dozen  points  along  the  line.  I 
had  eaten  luncheon  by  a  battery  near  Dixmude,  but 
they  were  lazy,  throwing  a  shell  or  two  only  for 
each  course.  But  here,  just  before  the  sun  came  up, 
200  feet  from  us,  a  battery  of  twelve  75s  fired  con- 
tinuously for  twenty  minutes.  Just  over  the  hill 
another  battery  cleared  its  throat  and  spoke.    In  the 


THE  AMERICANS  AT  VERDUN       61 

fields  beyond  us  other  batteries  played  continuously. 
Some  of  the  men  put  cotton  in  their  ears. 

We  ran  through  a  devastated  wood.  The  green 
forest  has  been  raked  by  high  explosive  into  dead 
stumps,  and  looks  like  a  New  Hampshire  hillside 
when  the  match  trust  has  finished  with  it.  The  road 
is  a  thing  of  mounds  and  pits,  blown  up  and  dug 
out  by  a  four  months'  rain  of  heavy  shells.  The 
little  American  cars  are  like  rabbits.  They  dip  into 
an  obus  hole,  bounce  up  again  and  spin  on.  They 
turn  round  on  their  own  tails.  They  push  their  pert 
little  noses  up  a  hill,  where  the  road  is  lined  with 
famous  heavy  makes,  stalled  and  wrecked.  They 
refuse  to  stay  out  of  service. 

We  rode  back  through  the  partially  destroyed  city 
of  Verdun,  lying  trapped  and  helpless  in  its  hollow 
of  hills.  We  drove  through  its  streets,  some  of 
them  a  pile  of  stones  and  plaster,  others  almost  un- 
touched, with  charming  bits  of  water  view  and  green 
lawns  and  immaculate  white  fronts.  The  city  re- 
minded me  of  the  victim  whom  a  professional  hyp- 
notist displays  in  a  shop  window,  where  he  leaves 
him  lying  motionless  in  the  trance  for  exhibition  pur- 
poses. 

Verdun  lay  seemingly  dead  inside  the  range  of 
German  fire.  But  once  the  guns  are  forced  back  the 
city  will  spring  into  life. 

Then  we  returned  to  the  ambulance  headquarters 


62     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  in  an  open  tent  shared  the  excellent  rations 
which  the  field  service  provides  for  its  workers.  We 
were  sitting  with  the  French  lieutenant  and  discuss- 
ing the  values  of  rhythm  in  prose  when  the  boys 
shouted  to  us  from  the  next  field.  An  aeroplane  was 
dipping  over  an  anchored  sausage-shaped  observa- 
tion balloon.  The  aeroplane  had  marked  its  victim, 
Avhich  could  not  escape,  as  a  bird  darts  for  a  worm. 
The  balloon  opened  up  into  flame  and  fell  through 
thirty  seconds,  burning  with  a  dull  red. 

The  hours  we  had  just  spent  of  work  and  excite- 
ment seemed  to  me  fairly  crowded,  but  they  were 
mild  in  the  life  of  the  field  service.  They  pound 
away  overtime  and  take  ugly  hazards  and  preserve 
a  boy's  humor.  More  young  men  of  the  same  stuff 
are  needed  at  once  for  this  American  Ambulance 
Field  Service.  The  country  is  full  of  newly  made 
college  graduates,  wondering  what  they  can  make 
of  their  lives.  Here  is  the  choicest  service  in  fifty 
years  offered  to  them. 

Even  a  jitney  wears  out.  Bump  it  in  the  car- 
buretor enough  times,  rake  it  with  shrapnel,  and  it 
begins  to  lose  its  first  freshness.  More  full  sections 
of  cars  should  be  given.  The  work  is  in  charge  of 
Piatt  Andrew,  who  used  to  teach  political  economy 
in  Harvard,  was  later  Director  of  the  Mint,  Assist- 
ant Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  secretary  of 
Senator  Aldrich's  Monetary  Commission. 


A.  Fiatt  Andrew,  who,  as  Director,  has  raised  the  Ameri- 
can Ambulance  Field  Service  from  a  small  beginning  to  a 
powerful  factor  in  rescue  work. 


THE  AMERICANS  AT  VERDUN       63 

As  soon  as  twilight  fell  we  started  on  the  nightly 
round.  Here  was  Section  4  of  the  American  Ambu- 
lance doing  hot  service  for  Hill  304  and  Dead  Man's 
Hill.  It  was  on  this  ride  that  I  saw  the  real  Verdun, 
the  center  of  the  deadliest  action  since  men  learned 
how  to  kill.  The  real  Verdun  is  the  focused 
strength  of  all  France,  flowing  up  the  main  roads, 
trickling  down  the  side  roads  and  overflowing  upon 
the  fields.  The  real  Verdun  is  fed  and  armed  by  the 
thousands  of  motor  cars  that  bray  their  way  from 
forty  miles  distant,  by  the  network  of  tiny  narrow 
gauge  railways,  and  by  the  horses  that  fill  the 
meadows  and  forests. 

Tiny  trucks  and  trains  are  stretched  through  all 
the  sector.  They  look  like  a  child's  railroad,  the 
locomotive  not  more  than  four  feet  high.  They 
brush  along  by  the  road,  and  wander  through  fields 
and  get  lost  in  woods.  The  story  goes  in  the  field 
service  that  one  of  these  wee  trains  runs  along  on  a 
hillside,  and  just  back  of  it  is  a  battery  of  22o's 
which  shoot  straight  across  the  tracks  at  a  height  of 
three  feet.  The  little  train  comes  chugging  along 
full  of  ammunition.  The  artillery  men  yell  "Atten- 
tion," and  begin  firing  all  together.  The  train  waits 
till  there  seems  to  be  a  lull,  and  goes  by  under  the 
muzzles. 

We  were  still  far  enough  from  the  front  to  see 
this  enginery  of  war  as  a  spectacle.     The  flashing 


64    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

cars  and  bright  winged  aeroplanes,  the  immense  con- 
course of  horses,  the  vast  orderly  tumult,  thousands 
of  mixed  items,  separate  things  and  men,  all  shaped 
by  one  will  to  a  common  purpose,  all  of  it  clothed 
in  wonder,  full  of  speed  and  color — this  prodigious 
spectacle  brought  to  me  with  irresistible  appeal  a 
memory  of  childhood. 

"What  does  it  remind  me  of?"  I  kept  saying  to 
myself.    Now  I  had  it: 

When  I  was  a  very  little  boy  I  used  to  get  up 
early  on  two  mornings  of  the  year:  one  was  the 
Fourth  of  July  and  the  other  was  the  day  the  circus 
came  to  town.  The  circus  came  while  it  was  yet 
dark  in  the  summer  morning,  unloaded  the  animals, 
unpacked  the  snakes  and  freaks,  and  built  its  house 
from  the  ground  up.  Very  swiftly  the  great  tents 
were  slung,  and  deftly  the  swinging  trapezes  were 
dropped.  Ropes  uncoiled  into  patterns.  The  three 
rings  came  full  circle.  Seats  rose  tier  on  tier.  Then 
the  same  invisible  will  created  a  mile  long  parade 
down  Main  Street,  gave  two  performances  of  two 
hours  each,  and  packed  up  the  circus,  which  disap- 
peared down  the  road  before  the  Presbyterian  church 
bell  rang  midnight. 

A  man  once  said  to  me  of  a  world  famous  gen- 
eral: "He  is  a  great  executive.  He  could  run  a 
circus  on  moving  day."  It  was  the  perfect  tribute. 
So  I  can  give  no  clearer  picture  of  what  Petain  and 


THE  AMERICANS  AT  VERDUN       65 

his  five  fingers — the  generals  of  his  staff — are  accom- 
plishing than  to  say  they  are  running  one  thousand 
circuses,  and  every  day  is  moving  day. 

Our  little  car  was  like  a  carriage  dog  in  the  skill 
with  which  it  kept  out  of  the  way  of  traffic  while 
traveling  in  the  center  of  the  road.  Three-ton  trucks 
pounded  down  upon  it  and  the  small  cuss  breezed 
round  and  came  out  the  other  side.  The  boys  told 
me  that  one  of  our  jitneys  once  pushed  a  huge  camion 
down  over  a  ravine,  and  went  on  innocent  and  un- 
concerned, and  never  discovered  its  work  as  a  wrecker 
till  next  day. 

But  soon  we  passed  out  of  the  zone  of  transports 
and  into  the  shell-sprinkled  area.  We  went  through 
a  deserted  village  that  is  shelled  once  or  twice  a 
day.  There  is  nothing  so  dead  as  a  place,  lately  in- 
habited, where  killing  goes  on.  There  is  the  smell  of 
tumbled  masonry  and  moldering  flesh,  the  stillness 
that  waits  for  fresh  horror.  Just  as  we  left  the 
village,  the  road  narrowed  down  like  the  neck  of  a 
bottle.  It  is  so  narrow  that  only  one  stream  of 
traffic  can  flow  through.  By  the  boys  of  the  field 
service  this  peculiarly  dangerous  village  of  Beth- 
lainville  is  known  as  "Bethlehem" — Bethlehem, 
because  no  wise  men  pass  that  way. 

The  young  man  with  me  had  been  bending  over 
his  steering  gear,  a  few  days  before,  when  a  shrapnel 
ball  cut  through  the  seat  at  just  the  level  of  his 


66     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

head.  If  he  had  been  sitting  upright  the  bullet 
would  have  killed  him.  And  another  bullet  went 
past  the  face  of  the  boy  with  him.  The  American 
Field  Service  has  had  nothing  but  luck. 

"But  don't  publish  my  name,"  said  my  friend. 
"It  might  worry  the  folk  at  home." 

We  rode  on  till  we  had  gone  eighteen  miles. 

"Here  is  our  station." 

I  didn't  know  we  were  there.  Our  Poste  de 
Secours  was  simply  one  more  hole  in  the  ground,  an 
open  mouth  into  an  invisible  interior — one  more 
mole  hole  in  honeycombed  ground. 

We  entered  the  cave,  and  something  hit  my  face. 
It  was  the  flap  of  sacking  which  hung  there  to  pre- 
vent any  light  being  seen.  We  walked  a  few  steps, 
hand  extended,  till  it  felt  the  second  flap.  We 
stepped  into  a  little  round  room,  like  the  dome  of  an 
astronomical  observatory.  It  was  lit  by  lantern. 
Three  stretcher  bearers  were  sitting  there,  and  two 
chaplains,  one  Protestant,  one  Roman  Catholic. 
The  Protestant  was  a  short,  energetic  man  in  the 
early  forties,  with  stubby  black  beard  and  excellent 
flow  of  English.  The  Roman  Catholic,  Cleret  de 
Langavant,  was  white-haired,  with  a  long  white 
beard,  a  quite  splendid  old  fellow  with  his  courtesy 
and  native  dignity.  These  two  men,  the  best  of 
friends,  live  up  there  in  the  shelled  district,  where 
they  can  minister  to  the  wounded  as  fast  as  they 


THE  AMERICANS  AT  VERDUN       67 

come  in  from  the  trenches.  Of  one  group  of  thirty 
French  stretcher  bearers  who  have  been  bringing 
wounded  from  Dead  Man's  Hill  to  this  tunnel, 
where  the  Americans  pick  them  up,  ten  have  been 
killed. 

We  went  out  from  the  stuffy,  overcrowded  shelter 
and  stood  in  the  little  communicating  trench  that 
led  from  the  Red  Cross  room  to  the  road.  We  were 
looking  out  on  500,000  men  at  war — not  a  man  of 
them  visible,  but  their  machinery  filling  the  air  with 
color  and  sound.  We  were  not  allowed  to  smoke, 
for  a  flicker  of  light  could  draw  fire. 

We  were' standing  on  the  crest  of  a  famous  hill. 
We  saw,  close  by.  Hill  340  and  Dead  Man's  Hill, 
two  points  of  the  fiercest  of  the  Verdun  fighting.  It 
was  the  wounded  from  Dead  Man's  Hill  for  whom 
we  waited.  Night  by  night  the  Americans  wait 
there  within  easy  shell  range.  Sometimes  the  place 
is  shelled  vigorously.  Other  nights  attention  is 
switched  to  other  points. 

"I  shouldn't  stand  outside,"  suggested  one  of  the 
stretcher  bearers.  "The  other  evening  one  of  our 
men  had  his  arm  blown  off  while  he  was  sitting  at 
the  mouth  of  the  tunnel.  He  thought  it  was  going 
to  be  a  quiet  evening." 

But  the  young  American  doctor  liked  fresh  air. 

It  was  a  wonderful  night  of  stars,  with  a  bell- 
like clarity  to  the  mild  air  and  little  breeze  stirring. 


68     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

A  perfect  night  for  flying.  We  heard  the  whirr  of 
the  passing  wings — the  scouts  of  the  sky  were  out. 
Searchlights  began  to  play.  I  counted  eight  at  once, 
and  more  than  twenty  between  the  hills.  Sometimes 
they  ran  up  in  parallel  columns,  banding  the  western 
heaven.  Sometimes  they  located  the  night  errant 
and  played  their  streams  on  him  at  the  one  inter- 
secting point.  Again  the  lights  would  each  of  them 
go  off  on  a  separate  search,  flicking  up  and  down  the 
dome  of  the  sky  and  rippling  over  banks  of  thin 
white  cloud. 

Star  lights  rose  by  rockets  and  hung  suspended, 
gathering  intensity  of  light  till  it  seemed  as  if  it  hit 
my  face,  then  slowly  fell.  The  German  starlights 
were  swift  and  brilliant;  the  French  steady  and  long 
continuing. 

"No  good,  the  Boches'  lights,"  said  a  voice  out  of 
the  tunnel.  A  French  stretcher  bearer  had  just 
joined  us. 

Other  rockets  discharged  a  dozen  balls  at  once, 
sometimes  red,  sometimes  green.  Then  the  pattern 
lights  began  to  play — the  lights  which  signal  direc- 
tions for  artillery  fire.  Theji^  zigzagged  like  a  snake 
and  again  made  geometrical  figures.  Some  of  the 
fifty  guns,  nested  behind  us,  fired  rapidly  for  five 
minutes  and  then  knocked  off  for  a  smoke.  From 
the  direction  of  Hill  304  heavy  guns,  perhaps  22o's, 
thundered  briefly.    We  could  hear  the  drop  of  large 


THE  AMERICANS  AT  VERDUN       69 

shells  in  the  distance.  The  Germans  threw  a  few 
shells  in  the  direction  of  the  village  through  which 
we  had  driven,  a  few  toward  the  battery  back  of 
us.  We  could  hear  the  whistle  of  our  shells  travel- 
ing west  and  of  their  shells  coming  east.  To  stand 
midway  between  fires  is  to  be  in  a  safe  and  yet 
stimulating  situation.  From  the  gently  sloping, 
innocent  hillocks  all  about  us  tons  of  metal  passed 
high  over  our  heads  into  the  lines.  If  only  one  shell 
in  every  fifty  found  its  man,  as  the  gossip  of  the 
front  has  it,  the  slaughter  was  thorough. 

"It  is  a  quiet  evening,"  said  my  friend. 

It  was  as  if  we  were  in  the  center  of  a  vast  cavity ; 
there  were  no  buildings,  no  trees,  nothing  but  dis- 
tance, and  the  distance  filled  with  fireworks.  I  once 
saw  Brooklyn  Bridge  garlanded  with  fireworks.  It 
seemed  to  me  a  great  affair.  We  spoke  of  it  for  days 
afterward.  But  here  in  front  of  us  were  twenty 
miles  of  exploding  lights,  a  continuous  performance 
for  four  months.  With  our  heads  thrust  over  the 
tunnel  edge,  we  stood  there  for  four  hours.  The 
night,  the  play  of  lights,  the  naked  hill  top,  left 
us  with  a  sense  of  something  vast  and  lonely. 

The  Protestant  clergyman  came  and  said:  "Let 
us  go  across  the  road  to  my  abri." 

He  stumbled  down  two  steps  cut  in  clay  and  bent 
over  to  enter  the  earth  cave.  "I  will  lead  you,"  he 
said,  taking  me  by  the  arm. 


70     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"Wait  while  I  close  the  door,"  he  said;  "we  must 
not  show  any  light." 

When  the  cave  was  securely  closed  in  he  flashed 
a  pocket  electric.  We  were  in  a  room  scooped  out  of 
the  earth.  The  roof  was  so  low  that  my  casque 
struck  it.  A  cot  filled  a  third  of  the  space.  The 
available  standing  room  was  three  feet  by  six  feet. 

"You  will  forgive  me  for  asking  it,"  he  went  on, 
"but  please  use  your  pocket  lamp;  mine  is  getting 
low  and  I  am  far  away  from  supplies.  We  can  get 
nothing  up  here." 

My  friend  handed  over  his  lamp.  The  clergyman 
flashed  it  on  a  photograph  pinned  against  a  plank 
of  wood. 

"My  wife,"  he  said;  "she  is  an  American  girl  from 
Bensonhurst,  Long  Island.    And  that  is  my  child." 

He  turned  the  light  around  the  room.  There 
were  pages  of  pictures  from  the  London  Daily  Mail 
and  the  New  York  Tribune.  One  was  a  picture  of 
German  soldiers  in  a  church,  drinking  by  the  altar. 

"I  call  this  my  New  York  corner,"  he  explained, 
"and  this  is  my  visiting  card."  From  a  pile  he  lifted 
a  one-page  printed  notice,  which  read: 

"Declaration  Religeuse. 

"I,  the  undersigned,  belong  to  the  Protestant 
religion.  In  consequence  and  conforming  to  the  law 
of  1905,  this  is  my  formal  wish:  In  case  of  sickness 
or  accident,  I  wish  the  visit  of  a  Protestant  pastor 


THE  AMERICANS  AT  VERDUN       71 

and  the  succor  of  his  ministry  whether  I  am  under- 
going treatment  at  a  hospital  or  elsewhere;  in  case 
of  death  I  wish  to  be  buried  with  the  assistance  of  a 
Protestant  pastor  and  the  rites  of  that  Church." 

Space  is  left  for  the  soldier  to  sign  his  name.  The 
little  circular  is  devised  by  this  chaplain,  Pastor 
,  chaplain  of  the Division. 

At  2  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  were  ordered  to 
load  our  car  with  the  wounded,  one  "lying  case," 
three  "sitting  cases."  We  discharged  them  at  the 
hospital,  and  tumbled  into  the  tent  at  Ippecourt  at 
4  o'clock. 


FRIENDS    OF    FRANCE 

AMERICAN  relief  work  in  France  has  many 
agencies  and  activities.  I  have  given  illus- 
trations of  it,  but  these  are  only  admirable 
bits  among  a  host  of  equals.  I  have  told  of  the 
American  Field  Service,  Other  sections  of  young 
Americans  have  been  at  work  in  the  hottest  corners 
of  the  battle  front.  The  Harjes  Formation  and 
the  American  Volunteer  Motor  Ambulance  Corps, 
known  as  the  Norton  Corps,  have  made  a  name  for 
daring  and  useful  work  with  their  one  hundred  cars 
on  the  firing  line.  What  the  Field  Service  has 
done,  they  too  have  done  and  suffered.  It  was  with 
a  glow  of  pride  that  I  read  the  name  of  my  Yale 
classmate,  W.  P.  Clyde,  junior,  of  the  Norton  Am- 
bulance, cited  in  an  order  of  the  day,  and  made  the 
recipient  of  the  French  War  Cross.  The  command- 
ing general  wrote  of  him: 

"Volunteer  for  a  perilous  mission,  he  acquitted 
himself  with  a  cool  courage  under  a  heavy  and  con- 
tinuous fire.     He  has  given,  in  the  course  of  the 

72 


"FRIENDS  OF  FRANCE"  73 

campaign,  numerous  proofs  of  his  indifference  to 
danger  and  his  spirit  of  self-sacrifice." 

I  have  shown  the  contribution  of  scientific  skill 
and  mechanical  ingenuity  which  Americans  have 
made  in  hospital  and  ambulance  work.  There  re- 
mains a  work  in  which  our  other  American  charac- 
teristic of  executive  ability  is  shown.  Organization 
is  the  merit  of  the  American  Relief  Clearing  House. 
When  the  war  broke  out,  American  gifts  tumbled 
into  Paris,  addressed  and  unaddressed.  There  was 
a  tangle  and  muddle  of  generosity.  The  American 
Relief  Clearing  House  was  formed  to  meet  this  need. 
It  centralizes  and  controls  the  receipt  of  relief  from 
America  intended  for  France  and  her  Allies.  It  col- 
lects fresh  accurate  information  on  ravaged  districts 
and  suffering  people.  It  prevents  waste  and  over- 
lapping and  duplication.  It  obtains  free  transporta- 
tion across  the  ocean  for  all  gifts,  free  entry  through 
the  French  customs,  and  free  transportation  on  all 
the  French  railways.  It  forwards  the  gifts  to  the 
particular  point,  when  it  is  specified.  It  distributes 
unmarked  supplies  to  places  of  need.  It  receives 
money  and  purchases  supplies.  It  has  114  persons 
giving  all  their  time  to  its  work.  It  has  issued 
45,000  personally  signed  letters  telling  of  the  work. 
It  employs  ten  auto  trucks  in  handling  goods.  It  has 
concentrated  time,  effort  and  gifts.  It  has  obtained 
and  spread  information  of  the  needs  of  the  Allies. 


74     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

It  has  been  efficient  in  creating  relationship  between 
the  donor  in  America  and  the  recipient  in  France, 
and  in  increasing  good  will  between  the  nations. 
I  do  not  write  of  the  Clearing  House  from  the  out- 
side, but  from  a  long  experience.  For  many  months 
my  wife  has  given  all  her  time  to  making  known  the 
work  of  Miss  Fyfe  who  manages  the  work  of  relief 
for  civilians,  their  transportation,  and  conducts  a 
refugee  house,  and  a  Maternity  Hospital  in  the 
little  strip  of  Belgium  which  is  still  unenslaved. 
Little  local  committees,  such  as  Miss  Rider's  in  Nor- 
walk,  in  Cedar  Rapids,  in  Montclair,  and  in  Doug- 
laston,  L.  I.,  have  been  formed,  and  36  boxes  of 
material,  and  over  $1,500  in  money,  have  been 
given.  Those  supplies  the  Clearing  House  has 
brought  from  New  York  to  La  Panne,  Belgium,  free 
of  charge,  promptly,  with  no  damage  and  no  losses. 
What  the  Clearing  House  has  done  for  this  humble 
effort,  it  has  done  for  60,000  other  consignments, 
and  for  more  than  a  million  dollars  of  money.  It 
has  distributed  supplies  to  2,500  hospitals  and  200 
relief  organizations  in  France.  It  has  sent  goods 
to  Belgium,  Salonica,  to  the  sick  French  prisoners  in 
Switzerland.  It  dispatched  the  ship  Menhir  for  the 
relief  of  Serbian  refugees.  It  has  installed  a  com- 
plete hospital,  with  200  beds  and  a  radiograph  out- 
fit. The  cases  which  it  transports  contain  gauze, 
cotton,  bandages,  hospital  clothing,  surgical  instru- 


"FRIENDS  OF  FRANCE"  75 

merits,  garments,  underwear,  boots,  socks.  The 
names  of  the  men  who  have  administered  this  ex- 
cellent organization  in  Paris  are  H.  O.  Beatty, 
Charles  R.  Scott,  Randolph  Mordecai,  James  R. 
Barbour,  and  Walter  Abbott. 

After  the  claims  of  immediate  dramatic  suffering, 
comes  the  great  mute  community  of  the  French  peo- 
ple, whose  life  and  work  have  been  blighted.  And 
for  one  section  of  that  community  the  Association 
of  "Les  Amis  des  Artistes'"  has  been  formed.  "To 
preserve  French  art  from  the  deadly  effects  of  the 
war,  which  creates  conditions  so  unfavorable  to  the 
production  of  masterpieces  of  painting,  sculpture, 
architecture,  decorative  arts,  engraving,"  is  the  ob- 
ject of  this  society.  The  members  see  that  other 
forms  of  activity  will  swiftly  revive  after  the  war. 
"The  invaded  districts  will  be  rebuilt,  business  will 
flourish.  But  art  will  have  a  hard  and  prolonged 
struggle."  The  society  purchases  from  its  funds  the 
works  of  men  of  talent  whom  the  war  has  robbed  of 
means  of  support.  These  paintings,  statuary,  en- 
gravings, so  acquired,  are  annually  divided  among 
the  members.  The  purchase  is  made  by  a  committee 
composed  of  distinguished  artists,  critics  and  con- 
noisseurs, representing  the  three  great  French  salons 
and  the  various  art  tendencies  of  the  modern  move- 
ment. The  Honorary  Committee  includes  Bakst, 
Hanotaux,    Maeterlinck,    Rodin   and   Raemaekers. 


76     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Americans  who  are  aiding  are  Mrs.  Mark  Baldwin, 
Mrs.  Paul  Gans,  Walter  Gay,  Laurence  V.  Benet, 
and  Percy  Peixotto. 

The  new  American  fund  of  the  "Guthrie  Com- 
mittee" for  the  relief  of  the  orphans  of  war  has  been 
recently  announced.  It  is  planned  to  raise  many 
millions  of  dollars  for  this  object. 

Children,  artists,  invalid  soldiers,  refugees — there 
is  a  various  and  immense  suffering  in  France  at  this 
moment,  and  no  American  can  afford  to  be  neutral 
in  the  presence  of  that  need.  The  sense  of  the  sharp 
individual  disturbance  and  of  the  mass  of  misery 
came  to  me  one  day  when  I  visited  the  Maison 
Blanche.  We  entered  the  open  air  corridor,  where 
a  group  of  thirty  men  rose  to  salute  our  party.  My 
eye  picked  up  a  young  man,  whose  face  carried  an 
expression  of  gentleness. 

"Go  and  bring  the  War  Minister  your  work," 
said  the  Major  who  was  conducting  us. 

A  little  chattering  sound  came  from  the  lips  of 
the  boy.  It  sounded  like  the  note  of  a  bird,  a  faint 
twittering,  making  the  sound  of  "Wheet-Wheet" — 
twice  repeated  each  half  minute.  Then  began  the 
strangest  walk  I  have  ever  seen.  His  legs  thrust 
out  in  unexpected  directions,  his  arms  bobbed,  his 
whole  body  trembled.  Sometimes  he  sank  partly  to 
the  ground.  His  progress  was  slow,  because  he  was 
spilling  his  vitality  in  these  motions.     And  all  the 


"FRIENDS  OF  FRANCE"  77 

time,  the  low  chirrup  came  from  his  lips.  More 
laborious  and  cruel  than  the  price  paid  by  the  vic- 
tims of  vice  was  this  walk  of  one  who  had  served 
his  country. 

And  yet  nothing  in  the  indignity  that  had  been 
done  to  his  body  could  rob  him  of  that  sweetness  of 
expression. 

"A  shell  exploded  directly  in  front  of  him,"  ex- 
plained the  doctor,  "the  sudden  shock  broke  his  nerv- 
ous system,  and  gave  him  what  is  practically  a  case 
of  locomotor  ataxia.  He  trembles  continuously  in 
every  part.  It  forces  out  the  little  cry.  The  effect 
of  that  shock  is  distributed  through  his  entire  body. 
That  is  what  gives  hope  for  his  recovery.  If  the 
thing  had  centered  in  any  one  function,  he  would 
be  a  hopeless  case.  But  it  is  all  diffused.  When 
the  war  ends  many  of  these  men  who  are  nerve- 
shattered,  will  recover,  we  believe.  As  long  as  the 
war  lasts,  they  live  it,  they  carry  a  sense  of  respon- 
sibility, with  the  horror  that  goes  with  it.  But  when 
they  know  the  shelling  is  over  for  ever  they  will 
grow  better." 

In  a  few  minutes  the  young  soldier  returned  carry- 
ing two  baskets.  The  one  thing  that  is  saving  that 
man  from  going  crazy  is  his  basket  making.  Very 
patiently  and  skillfully  his  shaking  hands  weave 
close-knit  little  baskets.  Some  of  them  were  open 
trays    for   household    knick-knacks.      Others    were 


78     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

worked  out  into  true  art  shapes  of  vase.  I  shan't 
forget  him  as  he  stood  there  trembling,  the  little 
reed  baskets  rocking  in  his  hands,  but  those  baskets 
themselves  revealing  not  a  trace  of  his  infirmity. 
Only  his  nervous  system  was  broken.  But  his  will 
to  work,  his  sweet  enduring  spirit,  were  the  will  and 
the  heart  of  France. 

,  The  War  Minister,  in  whose  hands  rests  the  health 
of  four  million  soldiers,  is  as  painstaking,  as  tender 
as  a  nurse.  Fifteen  minutes  he  gave  that  man — 
fifteen  minutes  of  encouragement.  The  rest  of 
France  waited,  while  this  one  little  twitching  rep- 
resentative of  his  race  received  what  was  due  from 
the  head  of  the  nation  to  the  humblest  sufferer.  Do 
I  need  to  say  that  the  soldier  was  bought  out?  Pro- 
fessor Mark  Baldwin  and  Bernard  Shoninger  held 
an  extempore  auction  against  each  other.  But  one 
basket  they  could  not  buy  and  that  was  the  tray  the 
man  had  woven  for  his  wife.  He  was  proud  to 
show  it,  but  money  could  not  get  it.  And  he  was  a 
thrifty  man  at  that.  For,  as  soon  as  he  had  received 
his  handful  of  five-franc  notes,  he  went  to  his  room, 
where  he  sleeps  alone  so  that  his  twittering  will  not 
disturb  the  other  men,  and  hid  the  money  in  his  kit. 
Something  more  for  his  wife  to  go  with  the  basket. 
Clearing  house  of  the  suffering  of  France,  the 
Maison  Blanche  is  the  place  where  the  mutilated  of 
the  Grand  Army  come.    As  quickly  as  they  are  dis- 


'FRIENDS  OF  FRANCE"  79 

charged  from  hospital,  they  are  sent  to  this  Maison 
Blanche,  while  completing  their  convalescence,  be- 
fore they  return  to  their  homes.  It  is  here  that  arms, 
legs,  stumps,  hands  and  the  apparatus  that  operates 
these  members,  are  fitted  to  them.  They  try  out  the 
new  device.  It  is  to  them  like  a  foot  asleep  to  a 
whole  man;  a  something  numb  and  strange  out 
beyond  the  responses  of  the  nervous  system.  It  be- 
haves queerly.  It  requires  much  testing  to  make  it 
articulate  naturally. 

Through  the  recreation  hall,  where  plays  and  mo- 
tion pictures  have  made  gay  evenings  in  time  past 
before  the  war,  file  the  slow  streams  of  the  crippled, 
backwash  of  the  slaughter  to  the  North.  To  the 
soldiers  it  is  a  matter  of  routine,  one  more  item  in 
the  long  sacrifice.  They  fit  on  the  member  and 
test  it  in  a  businesslike  way,  with  no  sentimentaliz- 
ing. Too  many  are  there  in  the  room,  and  other 
hundreds  on  the  pleasant  sunny  lawns,  in  like  case, 
for  the  individual  to  feel  himself  the  lonely  victim. 
There  are  no  jests — the  war  has  gone  too  far  for 
superficial  gayety — and  there  is  no  hint  of  despair, 
for  France  is  being  saved.  The  crippled  man  is 
sober  and  long-enduring. 

There  in  that  room  I  saw  the  war  as  I  have  not 
seen  it  in  five  months  of  active  service  at  the  front. 
For  yonder  on  the  Yser  we  had  the  dramatic  reliefs 
of  sudden  bombardment,  and  flashing  aeroplanes. 


8o     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

But  here  were  only  broken  men.  There  were  no 
whole  men  at  all  in  the  long  Salle.  The  spirit  of  the 
men  was  all  that  it  ever  was.  But  the  body  could 
no  longer  respond.  They  stood  in  long  line,  stripped 
to  the  waist  or  with  leg  bare  waiting  their  turn 
with  the  doctor  and  the  apparatus  expert.  There  is 
the  look  of  an  automaton  to  an  artificial  limb,  as  if 
the  men  in  their  troubled  motions  were  marionettes. 
And  then  the  imagination,  abnormally  stimulated  by 
so  much  suffering,  plays  other  tricks.  And  it  seemed 
to  me  as  if  one  were  looking  in  at  the  window  of 
one  of  those  shameful  "Halls  of  Anatomy"  in  a  city 
slum,  where  life-size  figures  lie  exposed  with  gro- 
tesque wounds  on  the  wax  flesh.  But  here  was  the 
crackle  of  the  leather  straps,  and  the  snapping  of 
the  spring  at  the  knee  and  elbow-joint  of  the  mech- 
anism, and  the  slow  moving  up  and  filing  past  of 
the  line,  as  man  after  man  was  tested  for  flexibility. 
Here  is  the  army  of  France — here  is  the  whole  vast 
problem  flowing  through  one  door  and  gathered  in 
one  room. 

American  money  is  helping  to  reeducate  these 
broken  men,  teaching  them  trades.  There  at  the 
Maison  Blanche,  our  fellow-countrymen  have  al- 
ready trained  563  men,  and  at  the  Grand  Palais 
257.  As  I  write  this,  701  maimed  men  are  still  in 
course  of  being  trained,  and  the  number  in  the  agri- 
cultural school  has  grown  to  90.    Altogether  2,000 


"FRIENDS  OF  FRANCE"  81 

maimed  soldiers  have  been  trained  through  American 
help.  Most  of  the  money  for  this  work  has  been 
raised  by  the  "American  Committee  for  Training  in 
Suitable  Trades  the  Maimed  Soldiers  of  France,"  of 
which  Mrs.  Edmund  Lincoln  Baylies  is  Chairman. 
The  president  of  the  society  in  France  in  control 
of  this  work  is  B.  J.  Shoninger,  the  fonr.er  president 
of  the  American  Chamber  of  Commerce  in  Paris. 

Like  England  in  the  battle  line,  we  are  only  at 
the  beginning  of  our  effort.  In  spots  and  patches 
we  have  responded  well.  Many  are  giving  all  they 
can.  The  thirty -five  million  dollars  in  money  which 
we  have  collected  for  all  causes  is  excellent. 
(Though  England  has  given  more  than  that  to  Bel- 
gium alone,  iri  addition  to  financing  the  war  and 
caring  for  her  own  multitude  of  sufferers.)  America 
has  made  gifts  in  goods  to  the  amount  of  sixty  mil- 
lion dollars.  Of  local  relief  committees  working  for 
France  we  have  over  two  thousand.  There  are  about 
forty-five  thousand  Americans  devoting  their  full 
time  to  the  service  of  France  as  soldiers,  drivers, 
fliers,  doctors,  nurses,  orderlies,  and  executive  offi- 
cers. There  are  many  thousands  in  the  United 
States  who  are  using  a  portion  of  their  strength  and 
leisure  to  raise  money  and  supplies.  As  Sydney 
Brooks  said  to  me : 

"Those  Americans  who  believe  in  our  cause  are 
more  Pro-Ally  than  the  Allies." 


82     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

A  group  of  Americans  among  our  millions  are 
aware  that  Washington  wrote: 

"All  citizens  of  the  United  States  should  be  in- 
spired with  unchangeable  gratitude  to  France." 


Note:  For  an  account  of  the  work  of  Mrs.  Wharton  see  page  321. 


VI 


THE    SAVING    REMNANT 


I  WISH  to  show  in  this  book  three  expressions  of 
nationality.  I  seek  to  show  the  fire  and  vigor 
of  German  nationality,  and  how  that  force  has 
been  misdirected  by  the  handful  of  imperialistic 
militarists  in  control.  There  has  been  no  instance 
of  a  noble  force  so  diverted  since  the  days  of  the 
Inquisition,  when  the  vast  instinctive  power  of  re- 
ligion was  used  by  a  clever  organization  to  torture 
and  kill.  Every  instinctive  element  in  our  being  is 
at  times  turned  awry.  Nationalism  suffers  just  as 
sex  love  suffers  from  the  perversions  of  evil  insti- 
tutions. But  the  abuse  of  instinct  is  no  argument 
for  cutting  loose  from  that  vital  source  and  seeking 
to  live  by  intellectual  theories,  emptied  of  warm 
emotional  impulse.  The  remedy  is  in  applying  the 
intellect  as  a  guide  and  corrective,  not  in  treating  in- 
stinct as  an  enemy.  The  nationalism  of  the  German 
people  will  yet  vindicate  itself  and  swing  true  to 
freedom  and  justice, 

I  try  to  reveal  the  nationality  of  France,  in  the 

83 


84     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

love  of  the  peasant  for  the  soil  of  his  Patrie,  for 
the  house  where  he  was  born,  and  for  the  sunlight 
and  the  equality  of  his  beautiful  country.  I  have 
shown  that  there  can  be  no  peace  as  long  as  other 
men  with  other  customs  invade  that  soil,  burn  those 
homes,  and  impose  their  alien  ideas. 

I  have  told  of  what  the  American  tradition  of 
nationality  has  driven  our  men  and  women  and  our 
boys  to  do  in  France.  They  see  the  fight  of  France 
as  our  fight,  just  as  France  saw  the  American  Revo- 
lution as  her  struggle.  None  of  this  work  was  done 
in  vague  humanitarianism.  These  men  and  women 
and  bo)'^s  are  giving  of  their  best  for  a  definite  aim. 
They  are  giving  it  to  the  American  cause  in  France. 
France  is  defending  the  things  that  used  to  be  dear 
to  us,  and  our  fellow-countrymen  who  are  of  the 
historic  American  tradition  are  standing  at  her  side. 

In  recent  years,  our  editors  and  politicians  have 
been  busy  in  destroying  our  historic  tradition  and 
creating  a  new  tradition,  by  means  of  which  we  are 
to  obtain  results  without  paying  the  price.  Neu- 
trality is  the  method,  and  peace  and  prosperity  are 
the  rewards.  I  have  collected  many  expressions  of 
this  new  conception  of  Americanism.  One  will 
suffice. 

Martin  H.  Glynn,  temporary  chairman  of  the 
National  Democratic  Convention,  in  renominating 
Woodrow  Wilson  for  president,  said : 


THE  SAVING  REMNANT  85 

"Neutrality  is  America's  contribution  to  the  laws 
of  the  world.  .  .  .  The  policy  of  neutrality  is  as 
truly  American  as  the  American  flag.  .  .  .  The 
genius  of  this  country  is  for  peace.  Compared  with 
the  blood-smeared  pages  of  Europe,  our  records  are 
almost  immaculate.  To-day  prosperity  shines  from 
blazing  furnaces  and  glowing  forges.  Never  was 
there  as  much  money  in  our  vaults  as  to-day.  .  .  . 
When  the  history  of  these  days  comes  to  be  written, 
one  name  will  shine  in  golden  splendor  upon  the 
page  that  is  blackened  with  the  tale  of  Europe's 
war,  one  name  will  represent  the  triumph  of  Ameri- 
can principles  over  the  hosts  of  darkness  and  of 
death.  It  will  be  the  name  of  the  patriot  who  has 
implanted  his  country's  flag  on  the  highest  peak  to 
which  humanity  has  yet  aspired :  the  name  of  Wood- 
row  Wilson." 

It  was  in  protest  against  this  neutrality,  this  rev- 
eling in  fat  money  vaults,  this  assumption  that  pros- 
perity is  greater  than  sacrifice,  that  these  young  men 
of  whom  I  have  told  have  gone  out  to  be  wounded 
and  to  die.  This  mockery  of  the  "blackened  page" 
and  "blood-smeared  pages"  of  Europe  has  stung 
many  thousands  of  Americans  into  action.  The 
record  of  their  service  is  a  protest  against  such  gloat- 
ing. These  fighters  and  rescuers  and  workers  would 
not  have  served  Germany  with  an  equal  zest.  Neu- 
trality between  France  and  Germany  is  impossible 


86     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  them.  Those  who  fail  to  see  the  difference  be- 
tween France  and  Germany  in  this  war  are  not  of 
our  historic  American  tradition. 

Meanwhile  our  friends  at  home,  very  sincere  and 
gifted  men,  but  mistaken,  I  believe,  in  their  attitude 
toward  nationality,  are  summoning  America  to  an 
artistic  rebirth,  so  that  "the  new  forces  in  our  arts 
may  advance."  They  write:  "The  soldier  falls 
under  the  compulsion  of  the  herd-instinct  and  is  de- 
voted by  his  passion  to  a  vision  out  of  which  de- 
struction and  death  are  wrought."  To  one  who  has 
heard  the  guns  of  Verdun,  this  piping  is  somewhat 
scrannel.  Art  is  not  something  that  exists  in  a 
vacuum  beyond  space  and  time,  and  good  and  evil. 
Art  is  the  expression  of  a  belief  in  life,  and  that 
belief  takes  var}ang  forms,  according  to  the  place 
and  age  in  which  it  falls.  It  may  be  the  expression 
of  a  surge  of  national  feeling,  as  in  Russian  music. 
It  may  be  the  response  to  a  rediscovery  of  ancient 
beauty,  as  in  the  Renaissance,  It  may  be  the  quick- 
ening received  from  fresh  discoveries  of  territory  and 
strange  horizons,  such  as  touched  the  Elizabethans. 
In  America  we  have  long  tried  by  artificial  stimu- 
lants to  revive  art.  We  have  omitted  the  one  sure 
way,  which  is  a  deep  nationality,  achieved  by  sac- 
rifice, a  reassertion  of  national  idealism.  Out  of 
that  soil  will  spring  worthy  growths,  which  the  thin 
surface  of  modern  fashionable  cosmopolitanism  can 


THE  SAVING  REMNANT  87 

never  nourish.  The  sense  of  the  true  America  has 
laid  hold  of  these  young  men  of  ours  in  France. 
By  living  well  they  create  the  conditions  of  art.  The 
things  they  do  underlie  all  great  expression.  Al- 
ready they  are  writing  with  a  tone  and  accent  which 
have  long  gone  unheard  in  our  America. 

My  lot  has  cast  me  with  young  men  at  their 
heroic  moment.  For  the  first  months  of  the  war  it 
was  with  Belgian  boys,  later  with  French  sailors, 
finally  with  these  young  Americans.  They  have 
made  me  impatient  of  our  modern  cosmopolitan 
American  who,  in  the  words  of  Dostoievski,  "Can  be 
carried  off  his  feet,  positively  carried  off  his  feet,  by 
noble  ideals,  but  only  if  they  come  of  themselves,  if 
they  fall  from  heaven  for  him,  if  they  need  not  be 
paid  for." 

The  reason  why  pacifism  is  ineffectual  is  because 
it  is  an  intellectual  theory,  which  does  not  build  on 
instinct.  A  man's  love  of  his  home  and  his  nation 
is  an  instinctive  thing,  full  of  rich  emotional  values 
and  moving  with  the  vital  current  of  life  itself. 
Our  pacifists  would  clear  their  thinking  if  they  came 
under  shell-fire.  All  that  is  sound  in  modern  radical 
thought  has  been  strengthened  by  this  war.  The 
democratic  movement  in  England  has  become  an 
overwhelming  force.  But  the  unsound  elements  in 
radical  thought,  those  elements  introduced  by  intel- 
lectual theorists  who  scheme  a  world  distasteful  to 


88     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

average  human  nature,  have  been  burned  away  in 
the  fire.  One  of  those  unsound  elements  was  the 
theory  of  pacifism  and  cosmopolitanism.  Many 
Americans  have  no  belief  in  the  idea  of  our  country. 
They  are  busy  with  the  mechanics  of  life.  Any  per- 
son who  is  not  "getting  results"  is  felt  by  them  to 
be  ineffectual.  In  that  absorption  in  material  gain, 
they  have  laid  hold  of  a  doctrine  which  would  jus- 
tify them  in  their  indifference  to  profounder  values. 
It  is  so  that  we  have  weakened  our  sense  of  nation- 
ality. 

The  nation  is  a  natural  "biological  group,"  whose 
members  have  an  "instinctive  liking"  for  each  other 
and  "act  with  a  common  purpose."  The  mstinctive 
liking  is  created  by  common  customs  and  a  shared 
experience.  This  experience,  expressed  in  song  and 
legislative  enactment  and  legend,  becomes  known  as 
the  national  tradition,  and  is  passed  on  from  gen- 
eration to  generation  in  household  heroes,  such  as 
Lincoln,  and  famous  phrases  such  as  "Government 
of  the  people."  That  instinctive  liking,  created  by 
the  contacts  of  a  common  purpose  and  rooted  in  a 
loved  tradition,  is  gradually  being  weakened  in  our 
people  by  importations  of  aliens,  who  have  not 
shared  in  a  common  experience,  and  have  not  in- 
herited our  tradition.  It  is  not  possible  to  blend 
diverse  races  into  a  nation,  when  members  of  one  race 
plot  against  our  institutions  in  the  interests  of  a 


THE  SAVING  REMNANT  89 

European  State,  and  members  of  another  race  ex- 
tract wealth  from  our  industry  and  carry  it  home 
to  their  own  people.  Instinctive  liking  is  not  so 
nourished.  A  common  purpose  is  not  manifested  in 
that  way.  We  have  not  touched  the  imagination 
of  these  newcomers.  It  requires  something  more 
than  "big  chances"  to  lay  hold  of  the  instinctive  life 
of  peasants.  Our  lax  nationalism  never  reaches  the 
hidden  elements  of  their  emotion  to  make  them  one 
in  the  deeper  life  of  the  State.  Skyscrapers  and 
hustling  and  easy  money  are  excellent  things,  but 
not  enough  to  call  out  loyalty  and  allegiance. 

These  changing  conditions  of  our  growth  have 
blotted  out  from  memory  the  old  historic  experience 
and  substituted  a  fresher,  more  recent,  experience. 
Forty  years  of  peace  and  commercial  prosperity  have 
created  a  new  American  tradition,  breeding  its  own 
catch  words  and  philosophy.  The  change  has  come 
so  quietly,  and  yet  so  completely,  that  Americans 
to-day  are  largely  unaware  that  they  are  speaking 
and  acting  from  different  motives,  impulses  and  de- 
sires than  those  of  the  men  who  created  and  estab- 
lished the  nation.  The  types  of  our  national  heroes 
have  changed.  We  have  substituted  captains  of 
industry  for  pioneers,  and  smart  men  for  creative 
men.  Our  popular  phrases  express  the  new  current 
of  ideas.  "Making  good,"  "neutrality,"  "punch," 
"peace  and  prosperity":  these  stir  our  emotional 


90      OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

centers.  We  used  to  be  shaken  and  moved  when 
the  spirit  of  a  Kossuth  or  Garibaldi  spoke  to  us. 
But  to-day  we  receive  the  appeal  of  Cardinal 
Mercier,  and  are  unmoved.  We  no  longer  know  the 
great  accent  when  we  hear  it. 

So  we  must  look  to  the  young  to  save  us.  Henry 
Farnsworth  was  a  Boston  man,  twenty-five  years 
old.    He  died  near  Givenchy,  fighting  for  France. 

"I  want  to  fight  for  France,"  he  had  said,  "as  the 
French  once  fought  for  us." 

Our  American  workers  are  aiding  France  because 
she  defends  our  tradition,  which  is  also  hers,  a  tradi- 
tion of  freedom  and  justice,  practiced  in  equality. 
In  her  version  of  it,  there  are  elements  of  intellectual 
grace,  a  charm,  a  profundity  of  feeling  expressed 
with  a  light  touch,  bits  of  "glory,"  clothed  in  flow- 
ing purple,  which  are  peculiar  to  the  Latin  tempera- 
ment. But  the  ground  plan  is  the  same.  Our  doc- 
tors and  nurses  of  the  American  Hospital,  our  work- 
ers in  the  hostels  and  the  Clearing  House,  our  boys 
in  the  American  Field  Service,  are  not  alone  saving 
the  lives  of  broken  men  of  a  friendly  people.  They 
are  restoring  American  nationality. 


SECTION    II 
WHY  SOME  AMERICANS  ARE  NEUTRAL 


neutrality:  an  interpretation  of  the 
middle  west 

"The  great  Interior  region  bounded  east  by  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  north  by  the  British  Dominions,  west  by  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  south  by  the  line  along  which  the 
culture  of  corn  and  cotton  meets  .  .  .  will  have  fifty 
millions  of  people  within  fifty  years,  if  not  prevented  by 
any  political  folly  or  mistake.  It  contains  more  than 
one-third  of  the  country  owned  by  the  United  States — 
certainly  more  than  one  million  of  square  miles.  A  glance 
at  the  map  shows  that,  territorially  speaking,  it  is  the 
great  body  of  the  republic.  The  other  parts  are  but  mar- 
ginal borders  to  it." 

{Lincoln's  Message  to   Congress,  Dec.   i,   1862.) 

THE  war  and  the  election  together  have  re- 
vealed a  growing  separation  between  the 
ideas  of  the  East  and  those  of  the  West. 
This  separation  is  largely  the  fault  of  the  East, 
which  prefers  to  do  its  thinking  in  terms  of  its  own 
industrial  welfare.  The  life  of  the  West  is  a 
healthier  life.  There  is  better  balance  between  in- 
dustry and  agriculture,  more  recognition  of  the  value 
of  social  equality,  more  open-mindedness  to  new 
ideas,  greater  readiness  to  put  them  into  practice. 

93 


94      OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  East  has  been  slow  to  recognize  this  moral 
leadership  of  the  newer  country.  It  has  greeted  the 
men  and  their  ideas  with  caustic  humor  and  some- 
times with  an  almost  malignant  bitterness.  This 
has  not  weakened  the  men  nor  crushed  their  ideas, 
but  it  has  lessened  good  will.  It  has  led  the  West 
to  distrust  a  policy  which  has  the  endorsement  of  the 
East. 

The  German  Kaiser  said  to  a  distinguished  French- 
man whom  I  know : 

"America  once  divided  between  North  and  South. 
It  would  not  be  impossible  now  to  separate  America, 
the  East  from  the  West." 

It  is  time  for  the  East  to  waken  itself  from  its 
selfish  sleep,  and  bend  its  mind  to  an  understand- 
ing of  the  American  community.  In  the  matter  of 
foreign  policy,  it  is  wiser  than  the  Middle  West,  but 
in  order  to  make  its  ideas  prevail  it  will  have  to 
work  by  sympathetic  cooperation.  It  will  have  to 
prove  that  its  notion  of  foreign  policy  is  not  based 
on  self-interest,  but  is  a  wise  program  for  the  Ameri- 
can nation. 

I  have  shown  that  a  section  of  America  of  the 
Civil  War  traditions  is  intensely  Pro-Ally,  and  has 
proved  it  in  speech  and  action.  The  new  America, 
spreading  out  over  the  immense  areas  of  the  Middle 
West,  is  neutral.  It  is  neutral  because  it  does  not 
know  the  facts.     I  am  sometimes  told  in  Europe 


NEUTRALITY  95 

that  it  is  the  chink  of  our  money  that  has  made  my 
country  deaf.  But  our  neutral  people  are  our  ear- 
nest Middle  Westerners,  hard-working  and  humani- 
tarian. The  Middle  West  has  not  given  money,  and 
it  is  warm-hearted.  It  has  not  taken  sides,  and  it 
is  honest.  This  neutrality  is  in  part  the  result  of 
the  Allied  methods  of  conducting  the  war.  In  Eng- 
land and  France,  there  has  been  an  unconscious  dis- 
regard of  neutral  opinion,  an  indifference  in  the 
treatment  of  its  representatives,  an  unwillingness 
to  use  the  methods  of  a  democracy  in  appealing  to  a 
democracy.  A  Government  report,  issued  by  a  bel- 
ligerent power,  has  little  effect  on  a  community 
three  thousand  miles  away.  But  the  first-hand  ac- 
counts, sent  by  its  own  writers,  who  are  known  to 
be  accurate  and  impartial,  have  wide  effect.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  through  the  first  two  years  of  the 
war,  more  news  was  given  to  American  journalists 
by  Germany  than  by  England  and  France. 

There  is  need  that  some  one  should  speak  the 
truth  about  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Allies.  For 
that  foreign  policy  has  been  a  failure  in  its  effect  on 
neutrals.  The  successful  prosecution  of  a  war  in- 
volves three  relationships: 

( 1 )  The  enemy. 

(2)  The  Allies. 

(3)  The  Neutrals. 

The  first  two  relationships  have  long  been  real- 


96      OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ized.  The  third — that  of  relationship  toward  neu- 
trals— has  never  been  realized.  It  is  not  fully  real- 
ized to-day.  The  failure  to  realize  it  led  America 
and  England  into  the  fight  of  1812.  It  led  to  the 
Mason  and  Slidell  case  between  England  and  Amer- 
ica in  the  Civil  War,  The  importance  of  winning 
neutral  good  will  and  public  opinion  is  not,  even  to- 
day, included  in  the  forefront  of  the  national  effort. 
It  is  still  spoken  of  as  a  minor  matter  of  giving 
"penny-a-liner"  journalists  "interviews."  England 
has  steered  her  way  through  diplomatic  difficulties 
with  neutral  governments.  But  that  is  only  one- 
half  the  actual  problem  of  a  foreign  policy.  The 
other  half  is  to  win  the  public  opinion  of  the  neu- 
tral people,  because  there  is  no  such  thing  finally  as 
neutrality.*      Public   opinion   turns   either   Pro  or 

*  Mazzini's  idea  of  neutrality  was  this: 

"A  law  of  Solon  decreed  that  those  who  in  an  insurrection 
abstained  from  taking  part  on  one  side  or  the  other  should  be 
degraded.  It  was  a  just  and  holy  law,  founded  on  the  belief — 
then  instinctive  in  the  heart  of  Solon,  but  now  comprehended  and 
expressed  in  a  thousand  formulae — in  the  solidarity  of  mankind. 
It  would  be  just  now  more  than  ever.  What!  you  are  in  the 
midst  of  the  uprising,  not  of  a  town,  but  of  the  whole  human 
race ;  you  see  brute  force  on  the  one  side,  and  right  on  the  other 
.  .  .  whole  nations  are  struggling  under  oppression  .  .  .  men  die 
in  hundreds,  by  thousands,  fighting  for  or  against  an  idea.  This 
idea  is  either  good  or  evil ;  and  you  continue  to  call  yourselves 
men  and  Christians,  you  claim  the  right  of  remaining  neutral? 
You  cannot  do  so  without  moral  degradation.  Neutrality — that 
is  to  say,  indifference  between  good  and  evil,  the  just  and  the 
unjust,   liberty   and   oppression — is   simply  Atheism." 


NEUTRALITY  97 

Anti,  in  the  end.  At  present  about  thirty  per  cent  of 
American  public  opinion  is  Pro-Ally.  Ten  per  cent 
is  anti-British,  ten  per  cent  anti-Russian,  ten  per  cent 
Pro-German,  and  forty  per  cent  neutral.  The  final 
weight  will  rest  in  whichever  cause  wins  the  forty 
per  cent  neutral  element.  That  element  is  con- 
tained in  the  Middle  West.  The  failure  in  dealing 
with  America  has  been  the  failure  to  see  that  we 
needed  facts,  if  we  were  to  come  to  a  decision.  Our 
only  way  of  getting  facts  is  through  the  representa- 
tives whom  we  send  over. 

A  clear  proof  that  the  cause  of  the  Allies  has  not 
touched  America  except  on  the  Atlantic  Seaboard 
lies  in  the  exact  number  of  men  from  the  Eastern 
Universities  who  have  come  across  to  help  France, 
as  compared  with  the  number  from  the  Middle  West- 
em  institutions  of  learning.  For  instance,  in  the 
American  Field  Ambulance  Service  Harvard  has  98 
men,  Princeton,  28,  Yale  27,  Columbia  9,  Dart- 
mouth 8.  These  are  Eastern  institutions.  From  the 
Middle  West,  with  the  exception  of  the  University 
of  Michigan,  which  has  sent  several,  there  is  occa- 
sionally one  man  from  a  college.  The  official  report 
up  to  the  beginning  of  1916  shows  not  a  man  from 
what  many  consider  the  leading  University  of  Amer- 
ica, the  State  University  of  Wisconsin,  and  less  than 
six  from  the  entire  Middle  West.    There  is  no  need 


98      OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  elaborating  the  point.  The  Middle  West  has 
not  been  allowed  to  know  the  facts. 

Because  my  wife  told  her  friends  in  Cedar  Rapids, 
Iowa,  the  facts  of  the  war,  three  men  have  come  four 
thousand  miles  to  help  France.  One  is  Robert  Toms, 
General  Manager  of  the  Marion  Water  Works,  one 
is  Dr.  Cogswell,  a  successful  physician,  one  is  Verne 
Marshall,  Editor  of  the  Cedar  Rapids  Gazette.  Each 
man  of  the  three  is  a  successful  worker,  and  gave 
up  his  job.  These  three  men  are  as  significant  as 
the  98  college  boys  from  Harvard. 

What  took  place  in  that  little  Iowa  group  will 
take  place  throughout  the  whole  vast  Middle  West- 
em  territory,  when  the  Allies  are  willing  to  use  the 
only  methods  that  avail  in  a  modern  democracy — 
namely,  the  use  of  public  opinion,  publicity,  and  the 
periodicals, — by  granting  facilities  for  information 
to  the  representatives  of  a  democracy  when  they  come 
desiring  to  know  the  truth.  Constantly,  one  is  met 
in  London  and  Paris  when  seeking  information  on 
German  atrocities,  German  frightfulness,  German 
methods : 

"But  surely  your  people  know  all  that." 

How  can  they  know  it?  Our  newspaper  men 
have  rarely  been  permitted  access  to  the  facts  by  the 
Allies.  But  to  every  phase  of  the  war  they  have 
been  personally  conducted  by  the  German  General 
Staff.    It  has  been  as  much  as  our  liberty  was  worth, 


NEUTRALITY  99 

and  once  or  twice  almost  as  much  as  our  life  was 
worth,  to  endeavor  to  build  up  the  Pro-Ally  case,  so 
constant  have  been  the  obstacles  placed  in  our  way. 
Much  of  the  interesting  war  news,  most  of  the  ar- 
resting interviews,  have  come  from  the  German  side. 
The  German  General  Staff  has  shown  an  understand- 
ing of  American  psychology,  a  flexibility  in  hand- 
ling public  opinion.  The  best  "stories"  have  often 
come  out  of  Germany,  given  to  American  correspond- 
ents. Their  public  men  and  their  officers,  includ- 
ing Generals,  have  unbent,  and  stated  their  case.  An 
American  writer,  going  to  Germany,  has  received 
every  aid  in  gathering  his  material.  A  writer,  with 
the  Allies,  is  constantly  harassed.  This  is  a  novel 
experience  to  any  American  journalist  whose  status 
at  home  is  equal  to  that  of  the  public  and  profes- 
sional men,  whose  work  he  makes  known  and  aids. 
My  own  belief  for  the  iirst  twenty-two  months  of 
work  in  obtaining  information  and  passing  it  on  to 
my  countrymen  was  that  such  effort  in  their  behalf 
was  not  desired  by  France  and  England,  that  their 
officials  and  public  men  would  be  better  pleased  if 
we  ceased  to  annoy  them.  I  was  thoroughly  dis- 
couraged by  the  experience,  so  slight  was  the  offi- 
cial interest  over  here  in  having  America  know  the 
truth. 

This  foreign  policy,  which  dickers  with  the  State 
Department,  but  neglects  the  people,  is  a  survival 


loo     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  the  Tory  tradition.  One  of  the  ablest  interpre- 
ters of  that  tradition  calls  such  a  foreign  policy — 
"the  preference  for  negotiating  with  governments 
rather  than  with  peoples."  But  the  foreign  policy 
of  the  United  States  is  created  by  public  opinion. 
Negotiation  with  the  State  Department  leaves  the 
people,  who  are  the  creators  of  policy,  cold  and  neu- 
tral, or  heated  and  hostile,  because  uninformed.  If 
the  Allied  Governments  had  released  facts  to  the 
representatives  of  American  public  opinion,  our  for- 
eign policy  of  the  last  two  years  might  have  been 
more  firm  and  enlightened,  instead  of  hesitant  and 
cloudy.  As  a  people  we  have  made  no  moral  con- 
tribution to  the  present  struggle,  because  in  part 
we  did  not  have  the  fact-basis  and  the  intellectual 
material  on  which  to  work. 

If  a  democracy,  like  England,  is  too  proud  to 
present  its  case  to  a  sister  democracy,  then  at  that 
point  it  is  not  a  democracy.  If  it  gives  as  excuse 
(and  this  is  the  excuse  which  ojfficials  give)  that  the 
military  will  not  tolerate  propaganda,  then  the  Al- 
lies are  more  dominated  by  their  military  than  Ger- 
many. Of  course  the  real  reason  is  neither  of  these. 
The  real  reason  is  that  England  and  France  are  un- 
aware of  the  situation  in  our  Middle  West. 

The  Middle  West  is  a  hard-working,  idealistic, 
"uncommercialized"  body  of  citizens,  who  create  our 
national  policy.     It  has  some  of  the  best  universi- 


NEUTRALITY  loi 

ties  in  America — places  of  democratic  education, 
reaching  every  group  of  citizen  in  the  State,  and  pro- 
foundly influential  on  State  policy.  Such  Univer- 
sities as  the  State  Universities  of  Wisconsin 
and  Michigan  are  closely  related  to  the  life  of  their 
community,  whereas  Yale  University  could  not 
carry  a  local  election  in  New  Haven.  What 
the  late  Professor  Sumner  (of  Yale)  thought,  was 
of  little  weight  at  the  Capitol  House  at  Hart- 
ford, Conn.  What  John  R.  Commons  (Pro- 
fessor at  the  State  University  of  Wisconsin)  thinks, 
has  become  State  law.  The  Middle  West  has  put 
into  execution  commission  government  in  over  200 
of  its  cities,  the  first  great  move  in  the  overthrow 
of  municipal  graft.  It  practices  city-planning. 
Many  of  its  towns  are  models.  Our  sane  radical 
movements  in  the  direction  of  equality  are  Middle- 
Western  movements.  To  curse  this  section  as  money- 
grubbing,  uninspired,  and  to  praise  the  Harvard- 
Boston  Brahmins,  the  Princeton-Philadelphia  Tories, 
and  the  Yale-New  York  financial  barons,  as  the  hope 
of  our  country,  is  to  twist  values.  Both  elements 
are  excellent  and  necessary.  Out  of  their  chemical 
compounding  will  come  the  America  of  the  future. 
The  leaders  of  the  Middle  West  are  Brand  Whit- 
lock,  Bryan,  La  FoUette,  Herbert  Quick,  Henry 
Ford,  Booth  Tarkington,  Edward  Ross,  John  R. 
Commons,  William  Allen  White,  The  Mayos,  Or- 


102    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ville  Wright.  Not  all  of  them  are  of  first-rate  men- 
tality. But  they  are  honest,  and  their  mistakes  are 
the  mistakes  of  an  idealism  unrelated  to  life  as  it 
is.  The  best  of  them  have  a  vision  for  our  coun- 
try that  is  not  faintly  perceived  by  the  East.  Their 
political  ideal  is  Abraham  Lincoln.  Walt  Whitman 
expressed  what  they  are  trying  to  make  of  our  people. 
The  stories  of  O.  Henry  describe  this  type  of  new 
American. 

A  clear  analysis  of  our  Middle  West  is  contained 
in  the  second  of  Monsieur  Emile  Hovelaque's  ar- 
ticles in  recent  issues  of  the  Revue  de  Paris.  In  that 
he  shows  how  distance  and  isolation  have  operated 
to  give  our  country,  particularly  the  land-bound 
heart  of  it,  a  feeling  of  security,  a  sense  of  being 
unrelated  to  human  events  elsewhere  on  the  planet. 
He  shows  how  the  break  of  the  immigrant  with  his 
Old  World  has  left  his  inner  life  emptied  of  the  old 
retrospects,  cut  off  from  the  ancestral  roots.  That 
vacancy  the  new  man  in  the  new  world  filled  with 
formula,  with  vague  pieces  of  idealism  about  brother- 
hood. He  believed  his  experiment  had  cleared  hu- 
man nature  of  its  hates.  He  believed  that  ideals  no 
longer  had  to  be  fought  for.  Phrases  became  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  ancient  warfare  against  the  enemies 
of  the  race.  And  all  the  time  he  was  busy  with  his 
new  continent.  Results,  action,  machinery,  became 
his  entire  outer  life.     The  Puritan  strain  in  him,  a 


NEUTRALITY  103 

religion  of  dealing  very  directly  with  life  immedi- 
ately at  hand,  drove  him  yet  the  harder  to  tackle  his 
own  patch  of  soil,  and  then  on  to  a  fresh  field  in  an- 
other town  in  another  State:  work,  but  work  unre- 
lated to  a  national  life — least  of  all  was  it  related 
to  an  international  ideal. 

And  he  let  Europe  go  its  own  gait,  till  finally  it 
has  become  a  dim  dream,  and  just  now  a  very  evil 
dream.  But  of  concern  in  its  bickerings  he  feels 
none.  So  to-day  he  refuses  to  see  a  right  and  a  wrong 
in  the  European  War.  He  confuses  the  criminal  and 
the  victim.  He  regards  the  Uhlan  and  the  Gerbe- 
viller  peasant  as  brothers.  Why  don't  they  cease 
their  quarrel,  and  live  as  we  live? 

That,  in  brief,  is  a  digest  of  Hovelaque's  search- 
ing analysis  of  our  national  soul  at  this  crisis.  We 
have  not  understood  the  war.  We  are  not  going 
to  see  it  unless  we  are  aided.  If  we  do  not  see  it, 
the  future  of  the  democratic  experiment  on  this 
earth  is  imperiled.  The  friends  of  France  and  Eng- 
land lie  out  yonder  on  the  prairies.  The  Allies  have 
much  to  teach  them,  and  much  to  learn  from  them. 
But  to  effect  the  exchange,  England  and  France 
must  be  willing  to  speak  to  them  through  the  voices 
they  know — not  alone  through  "Voix  Americaines" 
of  James  Beck,  and  Elihu  Root  and  Whitney  War- 
ren and  President  Lowell  and  Mr.  Choate.  England 
must  speak  to  them  through  Collier's  Weekly  and 


104    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  Saturday  Evening  Posl  and  the  newspaper  syn- 
dicates. There  is  only  one  way  of  reaching  Ameri- 
can public  opinion — the  newspapers  and  periodicals. 
No  other  agency  avails.  England  must  recognize 
the  function  of  the  correspondent  in  the  modem  de- 
mocracy. Through  him  come  the  facts  and  impres- 
sions on  which  the  people  make  up  its  mind.  He  sup- 
plies public  opinion  with  the  material  out  of  which 
to  build  policy.  For  our  failure  to  understand  the 
war,  France  and  England  must  share  the  blame  with 
America.  We  should  have  been  ready  enough  to 
alter  our  indifference  and  ignorance  into  understand- 
ing, if  only  our  writers  had  been  aided  to  gain  in- 
formation. 

But  the  Western  Allies  have  little  knowledge  of 
American  public  opinion,  and  small  desire  to  win  it. 
They  have  sent  some  of  our  best  men  over  in  dis- 
gust to  the  enemy  lines.  Any  one,  coming  on  such 
a  quest  as  I  have  been  on,  that  of  proving  German 
methods  from  first-hand  witness,  is  regarded  by  the 
Allies  as  partly  a  nuisance  and  partly  misguided.  If 
any  public  criticism  is  ever  made  of  my  country's 
attitude  by  the  French  or  English,  we,  that  have 
sought  to  serve  the  Allies,  will  be  obliged  to  come 
forward  and  tell  our  experience: — namely,  that  it 
has  been  most  difficult  to  obtain  facts  for  America, 
as  the  Allies  have  seen  fit  to  disregard  her  public 
opinion,  and  scorn  the  methods  and  channels  of 
reaching  that  public  opinion. 


II 


SOCIAL    WORKERS   AND  THE   WAR 

I  FOUND  in  Belgium  the  evidences  of  a  German 
spy  system,  carried  out  systematically  through 
a  period  of  years.  I  saw  widespread  atrocities 
committed  on  peasant  non-combatants  by  order  of 
German  officers.  I  saw  German  troops  bum  peas- 
ants' houses.  I  saw  dying  men,  women  and  a  child, 
who  had  been  bayonetted  by  German  soldiers  as 
they  were  being  used  as  a  screen  for  advancing  troops. 
What  I  had  seen  was  reported  to  Lord  Bryce  by  the 
young  man  with  me,  and  the  testimony  appears  in 
the  Bryce  report.  I  saw  a  ravaged  city,  l,ioo  houses 
burned  house  by  house,  and  sprinkled  among  the 
gutted  houses  a  hundred  houses  undamaged,  with 
German  script  on  their  door,  saying,  "Nicht  ver- 
brennen.    Gute  leute  wohnen  hier." 

With  witnesses  and  with  photographs  I  had  rein- 
forced my  observation,  so  that  I  should  not  over- 
state or  alter  in  making  my  report  at  home.  Opposed 
to  this  machine  of  treacheiy  and  cruelty,  I  had  seen 
an  uprising  of  the  people  of  three  nations,  men 

105 


io6    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

hating  war  and  therefore  enhsted  in  this  righteous 
war  to  preserve  values  more  precious  than  the  indi- 
vidual life.  With  a  bitter  and  a  costly  experience, 
I  had  won  my  conviction  that  there  were  two  wars 
on  the  western  front. 

When  I  returned  from  a  year  in  the  war  zone, 
five  months  of  which  was  spent  at  the  front,  I  looked 
forward  to  finding  a  constructive  program,  ham- 
mered out  by  the  social  work  group,  which  would 
interpret  the  struggle  and  give  our  nation  a  call  to 
action.  I  looked  to  social  workers  because  I  have 
long  believed  and  continue  to  believe  that  social 
workers  are  the  finest  group  of  persons  in  our  Ameri- 
can community.  They  seem  to  me  in  our  vanguard 
because  of  a  sane  intelligence,  touched  with  ethical 
purpose. 

It  was  a  disappointment  to  find  them  scattered 
and  negative,  many  of  them  anti-war,  some  of  them 
members  of  the  Woman's  Peace  Party,  some  even 
opposing  the  sending  of  ammunition  to  the  Allies. 

Few  elements  in  the  war  were  more  perplexing 
than  the  failure  of  our  idealists  to  make  their  think- 
ing worthy  of  the  sudden  and  immense  crisis  which 
challenged  them.  Absence  of  moral  leadership  in 
America  was  as  conspicuous  as  the  presence  of  inex- 
haustible stores  of  moral  heroism  in  Europe. 

The  very  experts  who  have  prepared  accurate  re- 
ports on  social  conditions  are  failing  to  inform  them- 


SOCIAL  WORKERS  AND  THE  WAR     107 

selves  of  the  facts  of  this  war.  I  have  found  social 
workers  who  have  not  studied  the  Bryce  report,  and 
who  are  unaware  of  the  German  diaries  and  German 
letters,  specifying  atrocities,  citing  "military  neces- 
sity," and  revealing  a  mental  condition  that  makes 
"continuous  mediation"  as  grim  a  piece  of  futility 
as  it  would  be  if  applied  to  a  maniac  in  the  nursery 
about  to  brain  a  child. 

I  heard  the  head  of  a  famous  institution,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Woman's  Peace  Party,  tell  what  promise 
of  the  future  it  gave  when  a  German  woman  crossed 
the  platform  at  The  Hague  and  shook  hands  with  a 
Belgian  woman.  There  is  something  unworthy  in 
citing  that  incident  as  answering  the  situation  in 
Belgium,  where  at  this  hour  that  German  woman's 
countrymen  are  holding  the  little  nation  in  subjec- 
tion, and  impoverishing  it  by  severe  taxation,  after 
betraying  it  for  many  years,  and  then  burning  its 
homes  and  killing  its  peasants.  An  active  unre- 
pentant murderer  is  not  the  same  as  a  naughty  child, 
whom  you  cajole  into  a  conference  of  good-will.  A 
pleasant  passage  of  social  amenity  does  not  obliterate 
the  destruction  of  a  nation.  Such  haphazard  treat- 
ment of  a  vast  tragedy  reveals  that  our  people  are 
not  living  at  the  same  deep  level  as  the  young  men 
I  have  known  in  Flanders,  who  are  dying  to  defend 
the  helpless  and  to  preserve  justice. 

I  was  asked  by  a  secretary  of  the  Woman's  Peace 


io8     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Party  to  speak  at  Carnegie  Hall  to  a  mass  meeting 
of  pacifists.  When  I  told  her  I  should  speak  of  the 
wrong  done  to  Belgium  which  I  had  witnessed,  and 
should  state  that  the  war  must  go  on  to  a  righteous 
finish,  she  withdrew  her  invitation,  saying  she  was 
sorry  the  women  couldn't  listen  to  my  stories.  She 
said  that  her  experience  as  a  lawyer  had  shown 
her  that  punishment  never  accomplished  anything, 
and  the  driving  out  of  the  Germans  by  military 
measures  was  punishment. 

I  have  known  social  workers  to  aid  girl  strikers 
in  making  their  demands  effective.  Have  the  social 
workers  as  a  unit  denounced  the  continuing  injus- 
tice to  Belgium?  Protests,  made  by  the  Belgian 
government  to  Washington,  of  cruelties,  of  undue 
taxation,  of  systematic  steam-roller  crushing,  were 
allowed  to  be  filed  in  silence,  so  that  these  protests 
that  cover  more  than  twelve  months  of  outrage  are 
to-day  unknown  to  the  general  public,  and  have  not 
availed  to  mitigate  one  item  of  the  evil.  One  was 
astonished  by  the  sudden  hush  that  had  fallen  on 
the  altruistic  group,  so  sensitive  to  corporate  wrong- 
doing, so  alert  in  defense  of  exploited  children  and 
women.  WTiy  the  overnight  change  from  sharp  in- 
tolerance of  successful  injustice"? 

I  find  that  our  philanthropists  are  held  by  a 
theory.  The  theory  is  in  two  parts.  One  is  that 
war  is  the  worst  of  all  evils.    The  other  is  that  war 


SOCIAL  WORKERS  AND  THE  WAR     109 

can  be  willed  out  of  existence.  They  believe  that 
another  way  out  can  be  found,  by  some  sort  of 
mutual  understanding,  continuous  mediation,  and 
overlooking  of  definite  and  hideous  wrongs  com- 
mitted by  a  combatant,  wrongs  that  date  back  many 
years,  so  that  out  of  long-continued  treachery  the 
atrocity  sprang,  like  flame  out  of  dung. 

They  refuse  to  see  a  right  and  a  wrong  in  this 
war.  It  is  not  to  them  as  other  struggles  in  life,  as 
the  struggle  between  the  forces  of  decency  and  the 
vice  trust  with  its  army  of  owners,  pimps,  cadets  and 
disorderly  hotel  keepers.  They  have  let  their  minds 
slip  into  a  confusion  between  right  and  wrong,  a 
blurring  of  distinctions  as  sharp  and  fundamental  as 
the  distinction  between  chastity  and  licentiousness, 
between  military  necessity  and  human  rights,  be- 
tween a  living  wage  and  sweatshop  labor.  In  their 
socialized  pity,  they  have  lost  the  consciousness 
of  sin. 

I  found  a  ready  answer  to  the  charges  of  hideous 
practice  by  the  army  of  invasion — the  answer,  that 
war  is  always  like  that.  But  it  is  too  easy  to  dismiss 
all  these  outrages  as  "war."  That  is  akin  to  the 
easy  generalizations  of  prohibition  fanatics,  of 
pseudo-Marxian  Socialists,  of  Anarchists,  of  vegeta- 
rians, of  Christian  Scientists,  and  of  many  other  sin- 
cere persons  who  overstate,  who  like  to  focus  what 
is  complex  into  a  one- word  statement.     "Do  away 


no     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

with  drink  at  one  stroke,  and  you  have  abolished 
unhappy  marriages."  "All  modern  business  is  bad." 
"Government  is  the  worst  of  all  evils."  "Meat- 
eating  leads  to  murder." 

Just  as  men-of-the-world  theories  on  the  inevita- 
bility of  prostitution,  with  its  "lost"  girls,  had  to 
give  way  to  the  presence  of  facts  on  the  commer- 
cialized traffic,  so  the  pacifist  position  on  the  present 
war  is  untenable  when  confronted  with  the  honey- 
combing of  Belgium  with  spies  through  long  years 
and  with  the  state  of  mind  and  the  resultant  acts 
of  infamy  recorded  by  Germans  in  their  letters  and 
diaries.  There  is  an  incurable  romanticism  in  the 
literature  of  the  pacifists  that  is  offensive  to  men  in 
a  tragic  struggle.  Let  me  quote  two  sentences  from 
a  peace  pamphlet  issued  by  friends  of  mine  who  are 
among  the  best-known  social  workers  in  the  United 
States: 

"It  (war)  has  found  a  world  of  friends  and 
neighbors,  and  substituted  a  world  of  outlanders  and 
aliens  and  enemies." 

This  is  a  quaint  picture  of  the  ante-bellum  situa- 
tion in  Belgium,  when  the  country  was  undermined 
with  German  clerks,  superintendents,  commercial 
travelers,  summer  residents,  who  were  extracting  in- 
formation and  forwarding  it  to  Berlin,  buying  up 
peasants  for  spies  and  building  villas  with  concrete 
foundations  for  big  guns.     "Friends  and  neighbors" 


SOCIAL  WORKERS  AND  THE  WAR     in 

is  a  rhetorical  flourish  that  hurts  when  applied  to 
German  officers  riding  into  towns  as  conquerors 
where  for  years  they  had  been  entertained  as  social 
guests. 

"In  rape  and  cruelty  and  rage,  ancient  brutishness 
trails  at  the  heels  of  all  armies." 

That  description  is  just  when  applied  to  the  Ger- 
man army  of  invasion  which  practiced  widespread 
murder  on  non-combatants.  It  is  inaccurate,  and 
therefore  unjust,  when  applied  to  the  Belgian, 
French  and  British  armies.  I  have  lived  and  worked 
as  a  member  of  the  allied  army  for  five  months.  It 
does  not  trail  brutishness.  It  is  fighting  from  high 
motive  with  honorable  methods.  It  is  unfortunate 
to  overlay  the  profound  reality  of  the  war  with  a 
mental  concept. 

To  summarize : 

1.  The  social  workers  have  failed  to  apply  their 
high  moral  earnestness  to  this  war.  They  have  not 
accepted  the  war  as  a  revelation  of  the  human  spirit 
in  one  of  its  supreme  struggles  between  right  and 
wrong.  As  the  result  their  words  have  offended,  as 
light  words  will  always  hurt  men  who  are  sacrific- 
ing property  and  ease  and  life  itself  for  the  sake  of 
an  ideal. 

2.  They  have  neglected  to  infonn  themselves  of 
the  facts  of  the  war.    As  the  result,  they  have  made 


112     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

no  positive  program  and  taken  no  constructive 
action. 

Let  them  deal  with  such  facts  as  the  German  villa 
in  the  Belgian  town  where  we  lived — a  villa  that 
was  a  fortification  with  a  deep  concrete  foundation 
for  a  heavy  gun.  I  want  them  to  face,  as  I  had  to 
face,  the  eighty-year-old  peasant  woman  with  a 
bayonet  thrust  through  her  thigh,  and  the  twelve- 
year-old  girl  with  her  back  cut  open  to  the  back- 
bone by  bayonets.  Is  it  too  much  to  ask  that  our 
social  workers  shall  hold  their  peace  in  the  presence 
of  universal  suffering  and  not  mock  noble  sacrifice 
with  tales  of  drugged  soldiers  ?  It  was  not  the  vine- 
gar on  hyssop  that  explains  the  deed  on  the  cross. 
Is  it  too  much  to  ask  them  to  abstain  from  their 
peace  parties  and  their  anti-munitions  campaigns'? 

We  should  listen  to  these  leaders  more  readily  if 
we  had  seen  them  risking  their  lives  like  the  boys  of 
the  American  Ambulance.  To  weigh  sacrifice  in 
detached  phrases  calls  for  an  equal  measure  of 
service  and  a  shared  peril.  If  a  few  of  our  social 
workers  had  been  wounded  under  fire,  we  should  feel 
that  their  companions  in  the  hazard  were  speaking 
from  some  such  depth  of  experience  as  the  peasants 
of  Lorraine.  But  our  idealists  have  not  spoken  from 
this  initiation.  Miss  Addams  is  still  puzzled  and 
grieved  by  the  response  her  words  about  drugged 
soldiers  called  out.     Mr.  Wilson  is  annoyed  that 


SOCIAL  WORKERS  AND  THE  WAR     113 

his  phrase  of  "too  proud  to  fight"  gave  little  pleasure 
to  the  mothers  of  dead  boys. 

With  fuller  knowledge  our  leaders  will  turn  to  and 
build  us  a  program  we  can  follow,  a  program  of 
action  that  preserves  the  immutable  distinction  be- 
tween right  and  wrong,  that  lends  strength  to  those 
dying  for  the  right.  With  such  frank  taking  of 
sides,  let  me  give  two  instances  where  definite  results 
could  be  achieved.  They  are  both  highly  supposi- 
titious cases.     But  they  will  serve. 

Let  us  suppose,  that  at  this  moment  the  Russian 
government,  under  cover  of  the  war,  is  harrying  and 
suppressing  the  Russian  revolutionary  centers  in 
Paris  and  London — the  French  and  British  govern- 
ments remaining  complacent  to  the  act  because  of 
the  present  war  alliance.  If  we  had  a  staunch  public 
opinion,  resulting  in  a  strong  government  policy  at 
Washington  which  had  decided  there  was  a  right 
and  a  wrong  on  the  western  front,  and  which  had 
thrown  the  immense  weight  of  its  moral  support  to 
the  defenders  of  Belgium,  such  a  government  would 
be  in  a  position  to  make  a  friendly  suggestion  to 
France  and  England  that  "live  and  let  live"  for 
Russian  liberalism  would  be  appreciated. 

Let  us  take  another  imaginative  case.  Suppose 
that,  under  cover  of  the  war,  Japan  was  tightening 
her  hold  on  China,  and  gradually  turning  China  into 
a  subject  state.    If  our  government  were  on  relations 


114    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  powerful  friendship  with  the  Allies,  it  would  be 
conceivable  that  England  could  be  asked  to  hint 
gently  that  unseemly  pressure  from  Tokyo  was  un- 
desirable. The  English  fleet  is  a  fact  in  the  world 
of  reality. 

What  is  needed  precisely  is  a  foreign  policy  that 
will  strengthen  the  tendencies  toward  world  peace, 
based  on  justice.  By  our  indecision  and  failure  to 
take  a  stand,  we  have  lessened  our  moral  value  to 
the  world.  It  is  weak  thinking  that  advocates  a 
policy  and  is  too  timid  to  use  the  instruments  that 
will  shape  it.  Because  we  want  a  restored  Belgium 
and  France  and  a  world  peace,  we  need  statesmen 
who  are  effective  in  attaining  these  things.  We  need 
men  who  can  suggest  a  diplomatic  gain  in  the  cause 
of  justice  that  the  nations  will  agree  on,  because  of 
a  government  at  Washington  that  carries  weight 
with  the  diplomats  who  will  bring  it  to  pass.  We 
want  to  see  the  friendship  of  France  and  England 
and  Canada  regained.  We  are  letting  all  these 
things  slip.  There  will  come  a  day  when  it  is  too 
late  to  do  anything  except  develop  regrets.  Why 
should  not  social  workers  declare  themselves  in 
time? 

At  a  season  of  national  gravity,  when  the  future 
for  fifty  years  may  be  determined  inside  of  four 
years,  we  want  those  men  for  our  leaders  who  can 
work  results  in  the  world  of  time  and  space,  instead 


SOCIAL  WORKERS  AND  THE  WAR     115 

of  dream  liberations  in  the  untroubled  realms  of 
moral  consciousness. 

Before  we  have  an  all-embracing  internationalism, 
we  must  have  a  series  of  informal  alliances,  where 
the  forces  of  modern  democracy  tend  to  range  on 
one  side,  and  the  autocratic  nations  tend  to  range 
on  the  other  side.  There  will  be  strange  mixtures, 
of  course,  on  both  sides,  even  as  there  are  in  the 
present  war.  But  the  grand  total  will  lean  ever  more 
and  more  to  righteousness.  Righteousness  will  pre- 
vail in  spite  of  us,  but  how  much  fairer  our  lot  if 
we  are  ranged  with  the  "great  allies — exultations, 
agonies,  and  love,"  and  man's  unconquerable  will  to 
freedom. 


Ill 


FORGETTING  THE  AMERICAN  TRADITION 

THE  Chicago  Evening  American  places  on  its 
editorial  page  on  August  lo,  1916,  a  letter 
to  which  it  gives  editorial  approval.  The 
letter  says:  "There  are  thousands  of  German-born 
citizens,  in  fact  the  writer  knows  of  no  others,  whose 
very  German  origin  has  made  them  immune  against 
such  influences  as  ancestry,  literature,  sentiment  and 
language,  which  count  for  so  much  in  their  effect 
upon  a  great  percentage  of  our  population.  These 
very  men  continue  to  be  loyal  Americans.  If  we 
are  disloyal,  what  then  do  you  call  the  Choates,  the 
Roosevelts,  the  Eliots,  and  the  foreign-born  Haven 
Putnams?" 

The  letter  is  signed  M.  Kirchberger.  Mr.  Hearst 
finds  this  statement  of  sufficient  importance  to 
spread  out  before  five  or  six  million  readers  of  his 
newspapers.  It  is  of  importance,  because  it  voices 
the  belief  of  an  ever-increasing  element  in  our  popu- 
lation. Our  ancestry,  literature,  sentiment  and  lan- 
guage do  produce  such  men  as  Joseph  Choate,  Theo- 

116 


FORGETTING  TRADITION  117 

dore  Roosevelt,  Charles  William  Eliot  and  George 
Haven  Putnam.  Those  names  do  go  straight  back 
in  our  national  history  to  the  original  stock,  which 
shaped  our  national  policy  and  ideals.  It  was  their 
ancestry,  English  and  American  literature,  their 
racial  sentiment,  and  the  English  language,  which 
made  the  historic  America.  Mr.  Kirchberger  be- 
lieves them  to  be  disloyal  to  the  New  America.  I 
trust  he  and  his  numerous  clan  will  define  what  sort 
of  country  he  wants  to  make  of  us,  what  ancestry 
he  wishes  to  have  prevail,  what  literature  he  will 
introduce  into  our  schools,  what  sentiment  and  what 
language.  I  hope  his  group  will  come  out  into  the 
open  with  their  program  of  action.  For  they  have 
one.  He  sees  clearly  that  the  civilization  of  a  nation 
is  the  resultant  of  its  racial  inheritance,  its  litera- 
ture, its  language  and  its  ideas  about  life.  He  means 
that  our  civilization  shall  go  his  way,  not  the  way 
of  the  Choates  and  Eliots.  He  has  no  quarrel  what- 
ever with  the  vague  internationalism  of  many  of 
our  social  workers  because  under  that  fog  he  and 
his  kind  can  operate  unobserved.  I  do  not  under- 
estimate the  influence  of  such  thought  as  his.  It  is 
growing  stronger  every  day.  It  is  sharply  defined, 
forceful,  and  it  will  prevail  unless  we  fight  it. 

When  one  comes  among  us,  sharing  the  privileges 
of  citizenship,  to  tell  us  that  he  is  "immune"  from 
the  claims  of  our  great  ancestry,  and  the  noble  sen- 


ii8     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

timent  of  our  past,  he  is  striking  at  the  heart  of  our 
nationality.  He  is  vastly  more  significant  than  his 
own  alien  voice.  For  his  claims  are  being  advocated 
by  editors  and  politicians.  His  ideas  are  sweeping 
our  communities.  Our  nation  does  not  live  be- 
cause it  is  a  geographical  unit,  nor  because  it  accepts 
all  the  races  of  Europe.  It  lives  because  it  fought 
at  Yorktown  side  by  side  with  Rochambeau  and  his 
Frenchmen.  It  lives  in  the  songs  of  Whittier  and 
in  the  heart  of  Lincoln.  By  its  past  of  struggle  for 
ideas  it  has  given  us  a  heritage.  But  we  have  sub- 
stituted pacifism  and  commercialism  for  the  old 
struggle,  and  we  have  substituted  phrases  for  the 
old  ideas  which  cost  sacrifice  to  maintain.  If  enough 
citizens  become  "immune"  from  the  influences  that 
have  shaped  us,  we  shall  lose  our  historic  continuity, 
and  become  the  sort  of  nation  which  these  enemies 
would  have  us  be.  But  these  considerations  do  not 
bring  alarm  to  our  leaders.  Our  leaders  supply 
the  very  intellectual  defense  for  this  treason.  They 
supply  it  in  the  doctrine  of  so-called  international- 
ism. 

Let  us  without  delay  select  our  position  and  hold 
it.  Let  us  stand  firmly  on  our  traditions  and  history. 
We  have  no  wish  to  be  "immune'*  from  our  language 
and  literature,  our  sentiment  and  ancestry.  We 
need  a  fresh  inoculation  of  those  "influences."  Let 
us  reinforce  the  policy  of  Franklin  which  recognized 


FORGETTING  TRADITION  1 19 

the  desirability  of  friendship  with  France  and  Eng- 
land. Let  us  restate  the  policy  of  Lincoln,  who 
paused  in  the  stress  of  a  great  war  to  strike  hands 
with  the  workers  of  England,  because  they  and  he 
were  at  one  in  the  love  of  liberty. 

No  single  factor  of  race  and  climate,  language  and 
culture  is  determinative  on  that  central  power  of 
cohesion  which  gathers  a  multitude  of  persons — 
"infinitely  repellent  particles" — into  an  organism 
which  lives  its  life  in  unity,  and  forms  its  tradition 
from  a  collective  experience.  But  it  does  not  follow 
that  some  one  of  these  factors  cannot  be  so  strength- 
ened as  to  disturb  the  balance.  If  the  geographical 
territory  is  carved  up  the  nation  is  destroyed.  Suc- 
cessive waves  of  immigration  can  drown  out  the 
sharply  defined  character  of  a  people.  This  is  now 
taking  place  in  the  United  States.  The  proof  is  our 
reaction  to  the  war.  It  is  not  that  we  revealed 
differences  of  "opinion."  It  is  that  we  were  untrue 
to  our  tradition. 

It  is  easy  to  throw  the  discussion  into  nonsense  by 
asking:  Is  there  any  such  thing  as  a  pure  race"?  Are 
not  the  greatest  nations  of  mixed  blood?  Do  you 
think  race  and  nation  are  the  same  thing?  It  is 
true  that  no  one  thing  is  determinative  in  the  mak- 
ing of  a  nation.  Race  and  language,  culture  and 
government,  border  line  and  climate,  religion  and 
economic  system,   are  each  an  influence,   and,   to- 


120  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

gether,  they  shape  the  people  in  face  and  habit  till 
they  walk  the  earth  with  a  new  stride  and  look  out 
on  the  world  with  different  eyes  from  those  of  any 
people  elsewhere.  But  the  supreme  thing  about  a 
nation  is  that  it  happened,  A  certain  group  of  peo- 
ple developed  affinities  and  aspirations,  cohered  and 
became  an  organism,  fought  its  way  to  independence, 
and  remembered  the  blood  it  had  spilled.  That  tra- 
dition of  common  experience  and  sacrifice  in  victory 
and  defeat  is  the  cord  that  binds  the  generations. 
It  is  a  spiritual  ancestry  that  colors  every  thought 
and  governs  every  action.  An  English  historian, 
Professor  Ramsay  Muir,  has  stated  this  aptly.  He 
writes : 

"The  most  potent  of  all  nation-molding  factors, 
the  one  indispensable  factor  which  must  be  present 
whatever  else  be  lacking,  is  the  possession  of  a  com- 
mon tradition,  a  memory  of  sufferings  endured  and 
victories  won  in  com-mon,  expressed  in  song  and 
legend,  in  the  dear  names  of  great  personalities  that 
seem  to  embody  in  themselves  the  character  and 
ideals  of  the  nation,  in  the  names  also  of  sacred 
places  wherein  the  national  memory  is  enshrined." 

Gilbert  K.  Chesterton  said  to  me: 

"Certain  people  like  the  arrangements  under 
which  they  live.  They  prefer  to  die  rather  than  to 
let  other  people  come  in  and  change  things.  Even 
if  their  nation  decides  on  a  policy  that  is  suicidal, 


FORGETTING  TRADITION  121 

they  would  rather  die  with  her  than  live  without 
her.  That  is  nationality.  When  the  call  came,  the 
citizens  of  the  nations  answered  with  what  was  deep 
in  their  subconsciousness.  All  resolutions  to  act 
as  'workers,'  as  members  of  an  'International,'  fell 
away.  If  pacifists  of  the  ruling  class,  like  Miss 
Hobhouse  and  Bertrand  Russell,  would  analyze 
what  is  really  in  their  mind,  they  would  find  that 
what  they  dislike  is  the  spectacle  of  democracy  en- 
thusiastically and  unanimously  agreeing  to  do  some- 
thing. They  distrust  democracy  on  the  march.  It 
is  their  artistocratic  sense  that  disapproves.  Just 
now,  it  is  the  Kaiser  whom  the  democracies  are 
marching  out  to  find,  and  the  people  are  not  behav- 
ing as  the  pacifists  would  like  to  have  them." 

This  idea  of  nationalism,  instead  of  being  an  early 
and  now  obsolete  idea,  is  a  recent  and  a  noble  idea. 
What  the  common  life  of  the  home  is  to  the  father 
and  mother  and  children,  through  poverty  and  child- 
birth and  fame,  that  is  the  life  of  a  nation  to  its 
citizens.  In  the  blood  of  sacrifice  it  is  welded  to- 
gether. Mixed  races  cannot  dilute  it,  a  doctored 
border  cannot  suppress  it,  a  stern  climate  cannot 
quench  it,  an  oppressive  government  cannot  enslave 
it.  Only  one  thing  can  destroy  it  and  that  is  when 
it  annuls  its  past  and  weakens  at  the  heart.  When 
it  ceases  to  respond  to  the  great  ideas  that  once 
aroused  it,  then  it  is  time  for  those  who  love  it  to 


122  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

look  to  the  influences  at  work  that  have  made  it 
forgetful.  The  denial  of  that  common  experience, 
the  refusal  to  inherit  the  great  tradition,  the  un- 
willingness to  continue  the  noble  and  costly  policy 
— these  mark  the  decline  of  a  nation.  These  are  the 
signs  of  peril  we  see  in  the  unwieldy  life  of  our 
immense  democracy  to-day.  The  call  that  came  to 
us  from  France  was  the  same  voice  that  we  once 
knew  as  the  voice  of  our  most  precious  friend.  By 
our  failure  to  respond  we  show  that  we  have  allowed 
something  alien  to  enter  our  inmost  life.  In  our 
equal  failure  to  safeguard  our  own  helpless  non- 
combatants,  we  reveal  that  the  old  compulsions  no 
longer  move  us.  By  the  cry  that  went  up  from  half 
our  nation — not  of  outrage  at  stricken  France,  not 
of  anger  for  slaughtered  children  of  our  own  race — 
but  that  strange  mystical  cry,  "He  kept  us  out  of 
war,"  we  betray  that  we  have  lost  our  hardihood. 
We  have  been  overwhelmed  by  numbers.  We  have 
suffered  such  a  heaping  up  of  new  elements  that 
we  have  no  time  to  teach  our  tradition,  no  will  to 
continue  our  race  experience. 

I  was  talking  of  this  recently  with  a  profound 
student  of  race  psychology,  Havelock  Ellis.  He 
said  that  the  determining  factor  is  the  strength  of 
the  civilization  receiving  the  fresh  contributions.  Is 
that  civilization  potent  enough  to  shape  the  new 
contributions?    The  French  have  always  had  their 


FORGETTING  TRADITION  123 

boundaries  beaten  in  upon  by  other  races,  but  so 
distinctive,  so  salient,  is  their  civilization  that  it 
absorbs  the  invasion.  He  said  that  the  question  to 
decide  is  whether  the  cells  are  sufficiently  organized 
and  determinate  to  receive  alien  matter. 

Surely  no  student  of  our  social  conditions  can 
say  that  our  tendencies  are  clear,  our  collective  will 
formed,  our  national  mind  unified.  We  keep  add- 
ing chemical  elements  without  coming  to  a  solution. 
England  accepted  a  few  invasions  and  conquests  and 
then  had  to  stiifen  up  and  work  the  material  into  a 
mold.  France  was  overrun  every  half  century,  but 
finally  she  drew  the  sacred  circle  around  her  bor- 
ders, and  proceeded  to  the  work  of  coalescing  her 
parts.  Our  present  stream  of  tendency,  and  our 
present  grip  on  our  own  historic  tradition,  are  not 
strong  enough  to  admit  of  immense  new  European 
contributions.  We  are  losing  the  sense  of  what  we 
mean  as  a  people. 

In  dealing  with  any  pet  assumption  of  modern 
thought,  one  must  guard  against  misunderstanding. 
The  opponent  calls  one  reactionary  and  then  one's 
day  in  court  is  over.  Or  the  opponent  pushes  a  plain 
statement  over  into  an  academic  discussion,  and  the 
whole  matter  at  issue  is  befogged.  I  am  not  attack- 
ing the  desirability  of  a  true  internationalism.  I 
am  saying  that  our  conception  of  it  is  all  wrong, 
and  that  our  method  of  attaining  it  is  futile.    The 


124  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

greater  day  of  peace  between  nations  will  not  come 
by  weakening  the  ties  of  nationality.  It  will  come 
through  a  deepening  of  the  sense  of  citizenship  in 
each  nation.  But  much  of  our  recent  thinking  has 
tended  to  weaken  the  claims  of  nationality.  It  is 
against  this  that  we  must  set  ourselves.  We  want 
internationalism,  but  the  internationalism  we  mean 
is  an  understanding  and  a  good  will  between  dis- 
tinct nations,  not  an  internationalism  which  is  the 
loss  of  a  rich  variety,  and  the  blurring  of  distinc- 
tions. Nations  will  not  disappear.  They  will 
heighten  their  individuality  under  the  process  of 
time.  The  hope  of  peace  lies  in  the  appreciation 
of  those  differences.  We  are  not  to  reach  inter- 
nationalism by  ceasing  to  become  nations,  as  our 
present-day  theorists  advocate.  There  lies  the 
service  of  the  war.  It  has  taught  us  that  the  French- 
man and  the  German  will  refuse  to  merge  their  ideas 
about  life  and  duty  in  a  denationalized  world  league. 
Each  wants  his  plot  of  ground,  his  own  patch  of 
sky,  his  own  kind  of  a  world,  with  those  men  for 
neighbors  who  think  as  he  thinks.  The  Frenchman 
does  not  wish  to  be  speeded  up  by  universal  voca- 
tional training,  and  a  governmental  regime  where 
efficiency  and  organization  are  the  aims  of  the  cor- 
porate life.  The  German  does  not  wish  his  world 
to  contain  waste  and  laziness  and  dilettantism.  A 
hundred  years  ago  the  world  put  up  a  sign  in  front 


FORGETTING  TRADITION  125 

of  incroaching  France:  "No  trespassing  on  these 
premises."  To-day  the  grass  of  France  is  red  where 
the  marauder  crossed  the  line.  I  have  seen  the  soul 
of  France  at  tension  for  two  years,  and  I  know  that 
her  agony  has  deepened  her  sense  of  nationality. 

It  is  easy  to  retort  that  it  is  the  nationalism  of 
Germany  that  has  spread  fire  and  blood  across 
Europe.  But  it  is  easier  yet  to  give  the  final  an- 
swer. There  are  diseases  of  individuality — the 
"artistic  temperament,"  egoism,  freakishness,  crim- 
inality— which  require  chastening.  But  because  cer- 
tain individuals  have  to  be  restrained,  we  do  not 
crush  individual  liberty,  self-expression  and  the  free 
play  of  development.  There  are  diseases  of  nation- 
alism— the  lust  for  power  and  territory,  the  desire 
to  impose  the  will,  the  language  and  the  customs, 
on  smaller  units.  When  a  nation  hands  over  its 
foreign  policy  and  its  personal  morality  to  the  state, 
which  is  only  the  machinery  of  a  nation,  and  when 
the  machine,  operated  by  a  little  group  of  imperial- 
ists instead  of  by  the  collective  will  of  the  nation, 
turns  to  organized  aggression,  there  is  catastrophe. 
Prussian  history  from  the  vivisection  of  Poland, 
through  the  rape  of  Schleswig  and  the  crushing  of 
Paris,  to  the  assassination  of  Belgium,  offers  us  no 
guarantees  of  a  common  aim  for  human  welfare. 
But  it  is  because  nationality  has  been  betrayed,  not 


126  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

because  it  has  been  expressed.  The  Uhlan  officer, 
murdering  women,  is  no  reason  for  abolishing 
Habeas  Corpus.  The  misbehavior  of  Germany  is  no 
excuse  for  rebuking  the  liberty  of  France. 

At  the  touch  of  the  bayonet,  on  the  first  shock  of 
reality,  internationalism  crumbles — the  internation- 
alism, I  mean,  that  disbelieves  in  national  quality, 
and  disregards  essential  differences.  Groups  of 
"workers,"  the  "universal"  church  of  co-religionists, 
dissolve.  The  nation  emerges.  Wars  have  been  the 
terrible  method  by  which  nations  have  created  them- 
selves, and  by  which  they  have  defended  their  be- 
ing. Pacifism  is  not  a  disease,  it  is  the  symptom 
of  the  disease  of  a  false  internationalism.  Pacifism 
springs  from  the  belief  that  nations  do  not  matter, 
that  "humanity  is  the  great  idea."  "Why  should 
nations  go  to  war,  since  the  principle  of  nationality 
is  not  vital?"  But,  actually,  this  principle  is  vital. 
"An  effective  internationalism  can  only  be  rendered 
possible  by  a  triumphant  nationalism."  The  present 
war  is  a  fight  by  the  little  nations  of  Belgium  and 
Serbia,  and  by  the  great  nation,  France,  for  the 
preservation  of  their  nationality.  We  have  failed 
to  understand  "the  causes  and  objects"  of  this  war, 
because  we  have  weakened  our  own  sense  of  nation- 
ality. Our  tradition  has  been  drowned  out  by  new 
voices.     Ninety  years  ago,  we  responded  to  Greece, 


FORGETTING  TRADITION  127 

and,  later,  to  Garibaldi  and  Kossuth.  To-day,  only 
those  understand  the  fight  of  the  nations  who  have 
been  reared  in  our  American  tradition.  Richard 
Neville  Hall  went  from  Dartmouth  College  and 
died  on  an  Alsatian  Hill,  serving  France.  A  friend 
writes  of  him:  "He  was  saying  things  about  the 
France  of  Washington  and  Lafayette,  how  he  had 
been  brought  up  on  the  tradition  of  that  historic 
friendship." 

I  have  found  something  inspiring  in  the  action  of 
these  young  Americans  in  France.  Perhaps  out  of 
them  will  come  the  leadership  which  our  countr)^ 
lacks.  My  own  generation  moves  on  to  middle  life, 
and,  as  is  the  way  of  elders,  reveals  moderation  of 
mind  and  a  good-natured  acceptance  of  conditions. 
Nothing  is  to  be  hoped  for  from  us.  The  great  gen- 
eration of  Walt  Whitman  and  Julia  Ward  Howe  is 
dead,  and  the  next  generation  of  George  Haven  Put- 
nam and  Eliot  and  O.  O.  Howard  is  dying.  There 
is  nowhere  to  turn  but  to  the  young.  They  must 
strive  where  we  have  failed.  They  must  fight  where 
we  were  neutral.  I  have  seen  some  hundreds  of  these 
youth  who  love  France  because  they  love  America. 
In  them  our  tradition  is  continued.  Through  them 
the  American  idea  can  be  reaffirmed  for  all  our  peo- 
ple. May  they  remember  their  dead,  their  boy- 
comrades  who  fell  in  service  at  the  front.  They 
have  shared  in  the  greatness  of  France.     May  they 


128  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

come  home  to  us  very  sure  of  their  possession.  We 
have  nothing  for  them.  Complacent  in  our  neutral- 
ity, and  fat  with  our  profits,  we  have  lost  our  chance. 
They  bring  us  moral  leadership. 

Now,  all  this  will  have  no  appeal  to  the  many 
nationalities  among  us.  The  American  tradition 
(except  for  a  few  personalities  and  ideas)  is  mean- 
ingless to  them.  I  have  dealt  with  their  needs  in 
the  preceding  chapter.  I  am  writing  these  next 
chapters  for  the  inheritors  of  our  American  tradi- 
tion, who  have  grown  slack  and  cosmopolitan,  who, 
though  of  the  blood-strain  and  cultural  conscious- 
ness that  fought  our  wars  and  created  our  civiliza- 
tion, are  now  too  tired,  some  of  them,  to  do  any- 
thing but  exploit  the  other  nationalities  which  have 
tumbled  in  on  the  later  waves  of  immigration. 
Others  of  us  are  simply  swamped  by  the  multitude 
and  find  our  refuge  in  cosmopolitanism.  "They're 
all  alike.  They  will  all  be  Americans  to-morrow." 
If  these  tame  descendants  of  America  will  be  true  to 
their  own  tradition,  they  will  learn  to  be  merciful 
to  their  fellow-countrymen  with  quite  other  tradi- 
tions. It  is  precisely  because  we  "old-timers"  have 
been  forgetting  our  tradition  that  we  have  been 
blind  to  the  rich  inherited  life  of  those  that  come 
to  us.  If  we  recover  our  own  sense  of  spiritual 
values,  we  shall  welcome  the  tradition  and  the  hope 
which  the  humblest  Jew  has  brought  us. 


IV 


COSMOPOLITANISM 


COSMOPOLITANISM  is  the  attempt  to 
deny  the  instinct  of  nationality.  It  works  in 
three  ways  with  us.  It  seeks  to  impose  an 
English  culture  on  our  mixed  races ;  it  seeks  to  create 
an  American  type  at  one  stroke;  it  preaches  an 
undiscriminating  indeterminate  merging  of  national 
cultures  into  a  new  blend,  "the  human  race,"  which 
will  be  composed  of  individuals  pretty  much  alike, 
with  the  same  aspirations.  The  differences  of  in- 
heritance will  be  thrown  away  like  the  bundle  from 
the  pilgrim's  back.  Modern  thought  is  permeated 
with  this  "new  religion  of  humanity,"  which  is 
going  to  accomplish  what  the  Roman  Empire  and 
the  Spanish  Inquisition  failed  to  do:  unify  the 
infinite  variety  of  human  nature. 

One  of  its  analysts  says  that  "internally  it  is  pro- 
ductive of  many  evil  vapors  which  issue  from  the 
lips  in  the  form  of  catchwords."  He  traces  it  to 
ill-assimilated  education,  and  sees  its  final  stage 
when  "the  victim,  hating  his  teachers  and  ashamed 
of  his  parentage  and  nationality,  is  intensely  miser- 

129 


130    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

able."  He  is  the  man  without  roots,  who  has  lost 
his  contacts  with  the  ideas,  the  ethic,  the  customs, 
the  affectionate  attachments,  out  of  which  social  life 
develops. 

For  the  last  fifty  years  certain  Germans  have 
preached  a  boundless  cosmopolitanism,  while  the 
German  people  have  practiced  an  intense  ingrowing 
racialism.  It  is,  of  course,  tme  that  these  men  who 
preached  it  were  themselves  rebels  against  the  Ger- 
man system,  Karl  Marx,  Lasselle,  Engels,  helped 
to  found  an  international  movement  in  protest 
against  the  form  of  nationality  within  which  they 
lived.  But  the  direction  and  violence  of  their  re- 
bound were  governed  by  the  hard  surface  from 
which- they  recoiled.  The  personality  of  these  men 
and  the  tonic  value  of  their  thought  have  been  of 
inestimable  benefit  to  our  age.  In  their  main  posi- 
tion they  were  much  nearer  the  truth  than  their 
opponents.  But  the  precise  point  I  am  dealing  with 
is  their  theory  of  cosmopolitanism.  And  here  a 
grievous  personal  experience  in  a  cramping  environ- 
ment misled  these  early  radicals,  and  they  incor- 
porated in  their  program  the  anti-national  item 
which  did  not  belong.  Because  their  analysis  of 
conditions  was  in  the  main  so  searching,  so  just, 
their  thought  has  continued  to  exercise  a  profound 
influence,  and  the  animating  ideas  in  their  philoso- 
phy of  history  and  in  their  analysis  of  industrialism 
were  imported  to  England  and  to  America.     The 


COSMOPOLITANISM  1 3 1 

stern  and  unbending  leaders  of  socialist  thought 
have  reproduced  their  masters'  voice  with  an  almost 
unchanged  accent.  A  few  great  Russians  contributed 
to  the  same  theory  of  cosmopolitanism,  and  have 
powerfully  affected  groups  of  modem  thinkers.  I 
doubt  if  any  single  idea  has  traveled  further  and 
more  swiftly  than  this  idea  that  the  sense  of  nation- 
ality is  a  mistaken  thing,  and  that  a  something 
wider  and  vaguer  is  the  goal  of  the  future.  The 
Latin  races  have  sometimes  thought  they  believed 
it,  but  they  quickly  corrected  their  thinking  under 
the  impact  of  event. 

Our  present  school  of  softened,  daintily  stepping 
radicals  have  whittled  away  some  of  the  original 
doctrine  of  the  class  war.  The  materialistic  theory 
of  history,  surplus  value  and  the  proletarian  divi- 
sion have  had  to  yield  in  part  to  the  facts  of  the 
case.  But  the  modern  reformers  cling  to  that  crea- 
tion of  German  and  Russian  thought,  a  cosmopoli- 
tan world,  the  merging  of  races  and  nations  into  a 
universal  undifferentiated  brotherhood  with  gradu- 
ally disappearing  boundaries.  We  find  it  in  our  in- 
telligent skilled  social  workers.  I  mention  them  in 
no  unfriendliness,  but  because  I  believe  that  they 
and  their  group  are  a  noble  influence  in  our  country, 
and  because  their  blindness  and  failure  in  this  crisis 
are  a  grief  to  me  and  to  thousands  of  other  persons 
who  have  looked  to  them  for  leadership.  We  find 
this  idea  of  cosmopolitanism  in  the  modern  essayists, 


132     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

who  are  read  in  America,  like  Lowes  Dickinson,  Ber- 
trand  Russell,  and  Bernard  Shaw.  This  doctrine 
has  misled  our  social  workers,  our  socialists,  our 
radicals  in  social  reforni,  our  feminists — almost 
every  element  in  our  social  movement.  Our  Ameri- 
can radicalism  is  permeated  with  a  vague  cosmopoli- 
tanism, and  its  child,  pacifism.  At  no  point  has 
"modern"  thought  exercised  a  profounder  effect  than 
on  our  social  m.ovement. 

We  need  the  check  here  of  the  Latin  mentality. 
The  clear  Latin  mind  refuses  to  be  misled  by 
idealistic  phrases,  whose  meaning  does  not  permit  of 
analysis  into  concrete  terms.  The  French  and  Ital- 
ians have  recognized  that  the  contribution  of  nation- 
ality is  vital  to  the  future.  Their  conception  of 
social  change  is  healthier  than  ours.  It  is  Mazzini 
and  not  Karl  Marx  who  was  the  prophet  of  a  sane 
evolution.    Mazzini  says: 


"Every  people  has  its  special  mission,  which  will  co- 
operate towards  the  fulfillment  of  the  general  mission  of 
Humanity.  That  mission  constitutes  its  nationality.  Na- 
tionality is  sacred. 

"In  laboring,  according  to  true  principles,  for  our 
country  we  are  laboring  for  humanity.  Our  country  is 
the  fulcrum  of  the  lever  which  we  have  to  wield  for  the 
common  good.  If  we  give  up  this  fulcrum,  we  run  the 
risk  of  becoming  useless  both  to  our  country  and  to 
humanity. 

"Do  not  be  led  away  by  the  idea  of  improving  your 


COSMOPOLITANISM  133 

material  conditions  without  first  solving  the  national 
question.     Yo-u  cannot  do  it. 

"Country  is  not  a  mere  zone  of  territory.  The  true 
country  is  the  idea  to  which  it  gives  birth."  It  is  "A 
common  principle,  recognized,  accepted,  and  developed 
by  all." 

His  thought  is  clear  and  consistent.  How  shall  a 
man  serve  all  humanity  whom  he  has  not  seen,  if 
he  does  not  serve  his  nation  whom  he  has  seen'? 
"The  individual  is  too  insignificant,  and  humanity 
too  vast."  The  stuff  of  nationality  is  the  sacrifice 
rendered  by  the  people  to  realize  their  aspirations 
— "By  the  memory  of  our  former  greatness,  by  the 
sufferings  of  the  millions."  The  limits  of  national- 
ity will  tend  toward  natural  boundaries — the  divi- 
sion of 

"humanity  into  distinct  groups  or  nuclei  upon  the  face 
of  the  earth,  thus  creating  the  germ  of  nationalities.  Evil 
governments  have  disfigured  the  divine  design.  Never- 
theless you  may  still  trace  it,  distinctly  marked  out — as 
least  as  far  as  Europe  is  concerned — by  the  course  of  the 
great  rivers,  the  direction  of  the  higher  mountains,  and 
other  geographical  conditions.  They  (the  Governments) 
have  disfigured  it  so  far  that,  if  we  except  England  and 
France,  there  is  not  perhaps  a  single  country  whose  pres- 
ent boundaries  correspond  to  that  design.  Natural  divi- 
sions, and  the  spontaneous,  innate  tendencies  of  the  peo- 
ples, will  take  the  place  of  the  arbitrary  divisions  sanc- 
tioned by  evil  governments.  The  map  of  Europe  will 
be  redrawn. 


134    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"Then  may  each  one  of  you,  fortified  by  the  power 
and  the  affection  of  many  millions,  all  speaking  the  same 
language,  gifted  with  the  same  tendencies,  and  educated 
by  the  same  historical  tradition,  hope,  even  by  your  own 
single  effort,  to  be  able  to  benefit  all  Humanity.  O  my 
brothers,  love  your  Country!  Our  Country  is  our  Home, 
the  house  that  God  has  given  us,  placing  therein  a  nu- 
merous family  that  loves  us,  and  whom  we  love;  a  family 
with  whom  we  sympathize  more  readily,  and  whom  we 
understand  more  quickly  than  we  do  others;  and  which, 
from  its  being  centered  round  a  given  spot,  and  from  the 
homogeneous  nature  of  its  elements,  is  adapted  to  a  special 
branch  of  activity." 

The  method  of  strengthening  the  sense  of  nation- 
ality is  by  education.  "Every  citizen  should  re- 
ceive in  the  national  schools  a  moral  education,  a 
course  of  nationality — comprising  a  summary  view 
of  the  progress  of  humanity  and  of  the  history  of 
his  own  country;  a  popular  exposition  of  the  prin- 
ciples directing  the  legislation  of  that  country." 

That  Mazzini's  ideas  are  a  living  force  to-day  is 
proved  by  the  response  of  the  nations  in  this  war. 
In  the  seaside  town  of  Hove,  Sussex,  where  I  live, 
his  book,  developing  these  ideas,  was  drawn  out 
from  the  public  library  thirty-eight  times  in  the  last 
four  years. 

There  is  a  danger  here  of  over-stressing  national- 
ity and  inviting  a  return  to  the  anarchy  of  war,  and 
this  is  the  difficulty  one  has  in  pointing  out  the 
psychologic  unsoundness  of  Cosmopolitanism.    The 


COSMOPOLITANISM  135 

limitations  of  the  Mazzini  theory  have  been  con- 
vincingly drawn  b)^  Graham  Wallas. 

"Nationalism,  as  interpreted  either  by  Bismarck  ("We 
must  not  swallow  more  than  we  can  digest")  or  by  Mazzini, 
played  a  great  and  invaluable  part  in  the  development 
of  the  political  consciousness  of  Europe  during  the  nine- 
teenth century.  But  it  is  becoming  less  and  less  possible 
to  accept  it  as  a  solution  for  the  problems  of  the  twentieth 
century." 

Wallas  shows  that  Mazzini  enormously  exagger- 
ated the  simplicity  of  the  question.  National  types 
are  not  divided  into  homogeneous  units  "by  the 
course  of  the  great  rivers  and  the  direction  of  the 
high  mountains,"  but  are  intermingled  from  village 
to  village.  Do  the  Balkan  mountains  represent  the 
purposes  of  God  in  Macedonia*?  And  for  which 
nationality,  Greek  or  Bulgar'i'  The  remedy,  as 
Wallas  sees  it,  for  recurring  war  between  nations 
is  an  international  science  of  eugenics  which  might 
"indicate  that  the  various  races  should  aim,  not  at 
exterminating  each  other,  but  at  encouraging  the 
improvement  by  each  of  its  own  racial  type."  In 
this  way  the  emotion  of  political  solidarity  can  be 
slowly  made  possible  between  individuals  of  con- 
sciously different  national  types.  A  political  emo- 
tion, if  it  is  to  do  away  with  war,  cannot  be  created 
by  thwarting  the  instinct  of  nationality.  It  must 
be  based,  "not  upon  a  belief  in  the  likeness  of  indi- 


136     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

vidual  human  beings,  but  upon  the  recognition  of 
their  unlikeness."  We  in  America  have  tried  to 
deny  the  facts  of  psychology  by  calling  all  our  new- 
comers Americans.  We  have  sought  to  escape  our 
problem  by  shutting  our  eyes  to  the  infinite  dis- 
similarity of  the  individuals  in  our  population.  The 
only  direction  for  hope  to  travel  is  that  the  im- 
provement of  the  whole  species  will  come  rather 
from  "a  conscious  world-purpose  based  upon  a  rec- 
ognition of  the  value  of  racial  as  well  as  individual 
variety  than  from  mere  fighting."  This  is  the  true 
internationalism,  and  it  differs  as  widely  from  a  cos- 
mopolitan blur  which  "makes"  Americans  as  from 
the  bitter  enforced  nationality  of  blood  and  iron, 
or  spiritual  imperial  arrogance. 

I  have  found  a  perfectly  clear  statement  of  what 
lies  loosely  in  the  mind  of  modern  Americans  of 
mixed  race  and  intense  pre-occupation  with  the  game 
of  getting  on.  I  have  found  it  in  the  editorial 
columns  of  a  Middle  Western  paper.  The  Cedar 
Rapids  Gazette  says: 

EXTINCT  AMERICANS 

"The  authorities  who  fear  that  the  American  race  will 
'die  out'  may  not  have  noticed  that  all  the  ingredients  of 
that  race  are  still  being  born  in  Europe  at  about  the  usual 
rate.  And,  at  the  worst,  if  one  American  race  dies  out  there 
will  be  another  race  as  good  or  better  in  America  to  take  its 
place. 


COSMOPOLITANISM  137 

"Several  American  races  have  already  died  to  the  extent 
that  the  members  are  no  longer  to  be  separately  identified 
and  their  distinctive  ideas  no  longer  exert  influence  on  the 
country.  Among  the  vanished  races  are  the  Pilgrims,  the 
Puritans,  the  Cavaliers,  the  Huguenots,  the  Acadian  voy- 
agers, the  Knickerbockers,  the  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jer- 
sey Dutch,  the  pioneer  forest  tribes  of  Kentucky,  Ohio  and 
southern  Indiana,  the  picturesque  Yankee,  the  southeastern 
Cracker,  the  typical  Plainsman  and  Cowboy,  each  of  whom 
in  his  time  and  place  was  the  representative  of  a  small 
and  distinct  nationality. 

"The  Americans  of  two  generations  are  unlike.  To  use 
an  Irish  epigram,  change  is  the  only  established  character- 
istic of  the  American.  The  American  in  whose  veins  flows 
the  blood  of  half  a  dozen  European  races,  whose  grand- 
parents may  have  been  born  in  four  states,  his  parents  in 
two  states ;  whose  wife  may  have  been  born  in  a  state  other 
than  his  own  and  whose  four  children  may  be  married  to 
men  and  women  of  four  nationalities,  is  not  worrying 
greatly  regarding  the  exact  composition  of  the  'American 
race.'  Individually  he  has  on  hand  a  rather  complete 
stock  of  the  ingredients  and  is  satisfied  with  the  idea  that 
he  is  doing  his  best  to  help  establish  a  representative  order 
of  humanity. 

"There  is  no  need  to  worry  about  the  passing  of  a  race. 
The  world  and  humanity  are  the  big  ideas.  The  race 
that  deserves  to  die  will  pass.  The  race  that  fights  for 
its  existence,  whose  members  have  pride  in  their  kind, 
will  live.  A  race  is  recruited  only  through  the  cradle. 
A  race  that  disregards  its  young  is  doomed.  But  man- 
kind will  not  be  less  numerous  and  that  which  is  of  value 
will  survive.  Not  only  the  end  of  the  race,  but  the  end 
of  the  world  is  in  sight  for  those  who  leave  no  children 
to  perpetuate  their  bodies  and  their  minds." 


138     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  trouble  with  that  is  that  it  is  devoid  of  self- 
respect.  It  gives  no  foundation  for  ethics.  It  gives 
no  sanction  for  religion.  It  gives  no  soil  and  roots 
for  literature.  It  treats  the  life  of  man  as  if  it  were 
grass  to  flourish  and  perish.  It  treats  men  as  me- 
chanical units  in  a  political  and  industrial  system. 
They  go  to  their  lathe  in  the  factory,  attend  a 
motion-picture  show  in  the  evening,  and  so  on  for 
a  few  years  to  dissolution.  It  is  pessimistic  with  a 
dark  annihilating  quality.  And  it  is  a  habit  of  mind 
that  is  growing  among  us.  It  is  the  inevitable  re- 
flex of  our  bright  surface  optimism,  which  drowns 
thought  in  speed  and  change,  and  believes  that 
activity  under  scientific  direction  can  satisfy  the 
human  spirit. 

Actually  the  stock  we  came  of  matters  very  much 
— for  ourselves.  Being  dead,  it  yet  lives,  and  we 
are  the  channel  of  its  ongoing.  Only  by  using  the 
inheritance  that  comes  to  us  can  we  lead  the  life 
of  the  mind  in  art  and  ethics  and  religion.  "Huckle- 
berry Finn,"  "The  Virginian,"  "Still  Jim,"  "The 
Valley  of  the  Moon,"  and  "Ethan  Frome,"  possess 
a  permanence  of  appeal  precisely  because  they  are 
rooted  in  the  sense  of  nationality,  and  are  a  natural 
growth  out  of  a  tradition.  Each  story  describes  a 
vanishing  race,  and  deals  with  a  locality  assailed 
by  change.  Each  is  a  momentary  arrest  in  time 
of  an  ebbing  tide.  Each  has  the  unconscious  pathos 
of  a  last  stand.     But  not  one  of  these  books  would 


COSMOPOLITANISM  139 

have  carried  beyond  the  day  of  its  appearance  if  it 
had  dealt  with  a  life-history  removed  from  its  long 
inheritance.  It  is  only  so  that  the  nations  among 
us  will  in  time  produce  their  literature.  It  will 
not  be  by  surface  types  of  "rapid"  Americans.  It 
will  rather  be  by  rendering  the  individual  (whether 
Jew  or  Bohemian)  in  all  the  loneliness  of  crowds 
and  modern  cities,  and  revealing  the  thoughts  and 
"notions" .  and  desires  that  have  come  down  to  him 
from  his  very  ancient  past,  and  his  little  ripple  of 
activity  in  the  endless  stream  of  descent.  Mon- 
tague Glass  and  Joseph  Hergesheimer  and  Fannie 
Hurst  are  aware  of  this  necessity  of  relating  their 
art  to  the  instinctive  life  of  their  character,  and  so 
under  the  brightest  crackle  of  their  American  smart- 
ness something  goes  echoing  back  to  a  day  that  is 
older  than  the  Coney  Island  and  Broadway  and 
Atlantic  City  of  their  setting.  Joseph  Stella  in  his 
drawings  has  shown  perception  of  this  by  anchoring 
his  type  in  its  inherited  life,  and  his  steel  workers 
are  better  than  many  reports  of  Mr.  Gary  on  how 
it  is  with  America  at  the  Pittsburgh  blast  fur- 
naces. 

But  not  only  is  the  sense  of  nationality  needed 
for  the  finer  activities  of  the  mind.  There  is  need 
of  it  in  "practical"  politics.  It  is  discouraging  that 
our  American  social  movement  has  been  captured  by 
cosmopolitanism.  For  the  immediate  future  lies 
with  radical  changes  in  the  world  of  environment. 


140    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Living  conditions  are  going  to  be  improved.  A 
greater  measure  of  equality  will  be  achieved  in  our 
own  time.  But  how  is  the  social  change  inside  the 
country  to  be  related  to  other  States?  What  shall 
be  our  foreign  policy  *?  This  is  where  the  cosmo- 
politanism of  our  radical  group  is  a  poor  guide  for 
action.  It  is  the  vice  of  liberals  that  they  don't 
harness  their  ideas  to  facts.  The  result  is  that  at 
time  of  crisis  the  power  slips  over  in  the  hands  of 
Tory  reactionaries.  We  have  seen  a  recent  instance 
in  England,  where  the  liberals  shirked  the  war  dur- 
ing the  premonitory  years.  As  the  result,  the  good 
old  stand-pat  crowd  of  Tories  came  in  with  a  rush, 
simpW  because  on  foreign  policy  they  had  a  pro- 
gram which  at  least  dealt  with  the  facts  of  the  case. 
Until  liberals  are  willing  to  think  through  on 
foreign  policy,  studying  European  and  world  his- 
tory, defining  the  meaning  of  the  State  and  visual- 
izing its  relationship  to  other  States,  we  shall  have 
a  skimmed-milk  pacifism  as  their  largest  contribu- 
tion to  the  problems  of  nation-States,  submerged 
nationalities,  backward  races,  exploitable  territory 
and  international  straits,  canals  and  ports  of  call. 
That  is  unfortunate.  For,  unless  the  liberal  mind 
is  brought  to  bear  on  foreign  policy,  we  shall  con- 
tinue to  have  that  policy  manipulated  by  little 
groups  of  expert  imperialists.  These  inner  cliques 
present  a  program  of  action  based  on  fact-study, 
which  wins  public  opinion,  because  the  instinct  of 


COSMOPOLITANISM  141 

the  people  trusts  men  who  know  what  they  want 
more  than  it  trusts  a  bland  benevolence  without 
direction  of  aim. 

Our  social  workers  and  other  liberals  would  not 
think  of  advocating  a  policy  of  "Christianizing"  the 
employer  as  the  sole  remedy  for  social  maladjust- 
ment. But  this  is  precisely  the  sort  of  thing  they 
advocate  in  inter-State  relationship.  They  seek  to 
work  by  spiritual  conversion,  turning  the  hearts  of 
the  rulers  to  righteousness  and  softening  the  mood 
of  the  bellicose  mass-people.  And  the  chaos  of  the 
outer  world  will  continue  to  pour  into  our  tight 
little  domestic  compartments  of  nicely-adjusted 
social  relationships. 

In  a  word,  foreign  policy  and  domestic  policy  are 
of  one  piece,  and  the  same  realism  must  be  applied 
to  questions  like  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  and  the 
internationalization  of  Constantinople  which  we 
apply  to  wage-scales.  Until  men  of  liberal  tend- 
ency are  willing  to  devote  the  same  hard  study 
to  the  map  which  they  put  on  social  reform  and 
internal  development,  the  world  will  continue  to 
turn  to  its  only  experts  on  foreign  policy,  who  un- 
fortunately are  largely  imperialists. 


THE    HYPHENATES 


A 


FAMOUS  American  president  once  said  to 
a  distinguished  ambassador : 


"We  make  them  into  Americans.  They  come  in  immi- 
grants of  all  nationalities,  but  they  rapidly  turn  into 
Americans  and  make  one  nation." 

And  the  ambassador  thought  within  himself  and 
later  said  to  me: 

"But  a  nation  is  a  people  with  a  long  experience,  who 
have  lived  and  suffered  together.  There  is  a  bell  in  a 
great  church,  which  if  you  lightly  flick  it  with  the  finger- 
nail, gives  out  one  single  tone  which  goes  echoing  through 
the  Cathedral.  If  you  stand  at  the  far  end,  you  can  hear 
that  tone.  So  it  is  with  a  nation.  If  it  is  struck,  it  re- 
sponds as  one  man  to  its  furthest  border.  At  the  stroke 
of  crisis  it  answers  with  one  tone." 

No.  We  are  not  a  nation.  We  are  a  bundle  of 
nationalities,  and  some  day  we  shall  be  a  Common- 
wealth if  we  deal  wisely  with  these  nations  who 
dwell  among  us. 

We  cannot  "make"  Americans.  We  can  make 
"imitation  Americans,"  as  Alfred  Zimmem  calls 
them.  The  Jew,  spiritually  sensitive  and  intellect- 
ually acute,  becomes  an  "amateur  Gentile."     The 

142 


THE  HYPHENATES  143 

imaginative  Calabrian,  of  rich  social  impulse,  be- 
comes a  flashily  dressed  Padrone.  The  poetic,  re- 
ligious Irishman,  whose  instinct  has  been  communal 
for  many  centuries,  becomes  a  district  leader.  These 
individuals  have  come  to  us  with  rare  and  charm- 
ing gifts,  fruit  of  their  nationality.  Instead  of 
frankly  accepting  them  in  their  inheritance,  we  have 
applied  a  hasty  conversion  which  denied  their  life 
of  inherited  impulses  and  desires.  Instead  of  bring- 
ing out  the  good  in  them,  we  have  Americanized 
them  into  commercial  types. 

Where  does  our  future  lie'? 

It  lies  in  developing  and  making  use  of  men  like 
the  great  Jews,  Abram  Jacobi,  Charles  Proteus 
Steinmetz  and  Louis  Brandeis,  who  are  true  to  their 
own  nature,  and  who  respond  to  the  American  en- 
vironment. These  men  are  not  amateur  Gentiles. 
They  are  Jews  and  they  are  Americans.  It  lies  in 
Italians  like  Dr.  Stella,  who  love  those  elements  in 
Italy  which  are  liberal,  and  who  further  every  effort 
in  America  to  create  free  institutions.  We  need 
the  help  of  every  man  of  them  to  save  our  country 
from  commercialism. 

Recently  I  asked  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of 
living  scholars,  of  German  descent,  to  give  me  his 
views  on  the  future  in  America.    He  wrote: 


"What  is   America   to   do?     I   should   answer:  preach 
hyphenation.    Make  the  common  man  realize  that  national- 


144    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ity  is  a  spiritual  force  which  has  in  essence  as  little  to  do 
with  government  as  religion  has.  When  government  in- 
terferes with  freedom  of  worship,  religion  comes  Into  politics 
and  stays  there  till  its  course  is  unimpeded.  The  same 
is  true  of  nationality — in  Ireland,  in  East  Europe  and 
elsewhere.  But  that  is  only  an  accident.  To  allow  govern- 
ments to  exploit  for  political  ends  the  huge  inarticulate 
emotional  driving  force  of  either  religion  or  nationality  is 
to  open  the  floodgates.  Hence  the  wars  of  religion  in  the 
Seventeenth  Century  and  the  nationalist  hatreds  of  the 
present  war. 

Alfred  Zimmern  says : 

"It  seems  strange  that  there  should  be  Americans  who 
still  hold  firmly  to  the  old-fashioned  view  of  what  I  can 
only  call  instantaneous  conversion,  of  the  desirability  and 
possibility  of  the  immigrant  shedding  his  whole  ancestral 
inheritance  and  flinging  himself  into  the  melting-pot  of 
transatlantic  life  to  emerge  into  a  clean  white  American 
soul  of  the  brand  approved  by  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  Now 
the  only  way  to  teach  immigrants  how  to  become  good 
Americans,  that  is  to  say,  how  to  be  good  in  America,  is 
by  appealing  to  that  in  them  which  made  them  good  in 
Croatia,  or  Bohemia,  or  Poland,  or  wherever  they  came 
from.  And  by  far  the  best  and  the  most  useful  leverage 
for  this  purpose  is  the  appeal  to  nationality :  because  na- 
tionality is  more  than  a  creed  or  a  doctrine  or  a  code  of 
conduct,  it  is  an  instinctive  attachment." 

The  road  to  sound  Internationalism,  to  an  un- 
derstanding between  States,  lies  "through  National- 
ism, not  through  leveling  men  down  to  a  gray,  in- 


THE  HYPHENATES  145 

distinctive  Cosmopolitanism  but  by  appealing  to  the 
best  elements  in  the  corporate  inheritance  of  each 
nation."  True  democracy  wishes  to  use  the  best 
that  is  in  men  in  all  their  infinite  diversity,  not  to 
melt  away  their  difference  into  one  economic  man. 
The  American  passion  for  uniformity,  for  creating 
a  "snappy,"  efficient,  undifferentiated  type,  is  merely 
the  local  and  recent  form  of  the  rigid  aristocratic 
desire  to  "Christianize"  the  Jew,  to  Anglicize  Ire- 
land, to  modernize  the  Hindu.  It  is  the  wish  to 
make  man  in  our  own  image.  It  is  the  last  bad 
relic  of  the  missionary  zeal  which  conducted  the 
Inquisition.  It  is  only  subtler  and  more  dangerous, 
because  persecution  called  out  hidden  powers  of  re- 
sistance, but  triumphant  Commercialism,  as  engi- 
neered by  our  industrial  oligarchy,  calls  out  imi- 
tation. 

I  have  a  collection  of  photographs  made  at  Ellis 
Island  by  Julian  Dimock.  They  are  subjects  chosen 
almost  at  random  from  the  stream  of  newcomers  on 
the  morning  of  ship-arrival.  There  is  often  some- 
thing very  touching  in  the  expression  of  these  faces : 
a  trust  in  the  goodness  of  life,  in  the  goodness  of 
human  nature.  Man  and  woman  and  youth,  they 
seem  to  carry  someJHHB^|||is  been  won  by  long 
generations  of  rooted  life  and  passed  on  to  them 
for  safe-keeping.  And  suddenly  at  the  landing  in 
the  new  world  the  tradition  is  touched  to  a  dream 
of  hope.    But  that  light  never  lasts  for  long.    Watch 


146    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

those  same  newcomers  as  they  are  disgorged  from 
our  city  factories.  How  soon  the  light  goes  out  of 
their  faces,  the  inhabiting  spirit  withdrawn  to  its 
own  inaccessible  home.  Something  brisk  and  natty 
and  pert  replaces  that  unconscious  dignity.  Some- 
thing tired  from  unceasing  surface  stimulus  takes 
possession  of  what  was  fresh  and  innocent  in  open 
peasant  life  and  the  friendly  intercourse  of  neigh- 
bors. 

These  races,  in  their  weakness  and  poverty,  have 
been  unable  to  swing  back  to  their  own  deep  center 
of  consciousness.  Unaided,  it  is  doubtful  if  they 
will  ever  raise  their  buried  life  from  its  sleep.  The 
Jewish  nation  is  the  only  dispersion  among  us  which 
has  gathered  its  will  and  recovered  its  self-conscious- 
ness enough  to  give  us  any  promising  movement. 
They  are  slowly  recognizing  what  is  being  done  to 
their  young.  They  begin  to  see  that  their  nation 
is  losing  its  one  priceless  jewel,  the  possession  of 
spiritual  insight.  In  the  movement  which  is  spread- 
ing through  the  day  schools  for  teaching  young 
Jews  the  great  ethical  tradition  of  their  people,  in 
their  educational  alliances,  in  the  Menorah  Asso- 
ciation, in  the  Zionist  Movement,  in  the  writings 
of  Brandeis,  Kallen^^|||^^|[|||||||^  they  are  showing 
the  first  glimmerings  of  statesmanship  and  making 
the  first  application  of  intelligence  to  our  commer- 
cialized cosmopolitan  materialistic  country  which 
we  have  had  since  we  passed  on  from  "Anglo-Saxon" 


THE  HYPHENATES  147 

Protestant  civilization.  May  their  grip  on  their 
nationality  never  grow  less.  May  the  clear  pro- 
gram which  they  have  constructed  against  the  drift 
and  rush  of  our  careless  life  seize  the  imagination 
of  Italian  and  Serb  and  Bohemian.  So  and  no 
otherwise,  we  shall  at  last  have  a  spiritual  basis 
for  our  civilization. 

Frank  acceptance  of  the  fact  of  dual  nationality 
leads  to  such  clear  statement  as  Randolph  Bourne 
has  given  us  in  The  Menorah  Journal  for  Decem- 
ber, 1916.  He  shows  the  fallacy  of  the  "melting 
pot"  idea,  which  attempts  to  knead  the  whole  popu- 
lation into  an  undefined  colorless  mass,  labeled 
American.  In  place  of  that  undesirable  and  absurd 
consummation,  he  offers  a  cooperation  of  cultures. 
"America  has  become  a  vast  reservoir  of  disper- 
sions," and  Cooperative  Americanism  will  meet  "the 
demands  of  the  foreign  immigre  who  wishes  free- 
dom to  preserve  his  heritage  at  the  same  time  that 
he  cooperates  loyally  with  all  other  nationals  in  the 
building  up  of  America." 

What  is  Cooperative  Americanism?  Mr.  Bourne 
answers  that  it  is  "an  ideal  of  a  freely  mingling 
society  of  peoples  of  very  different  racial  and  cul- 
tural antecedents,  with  a  common  political  alle- 
giance and  common  social  ends,  but  with  free  and 
distinctive  cultural  allegiances  which  may  be 
placed  anywhere  in  the  world  that  they  like.  If 
the  Jews  have  been  the  first  international  race,  I 


148    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

look    to    America    to    be    the    first    international 
nation." 

Now,  there  is  no  unpopularity  to-day  in  lauding 
a  Jew  or  a  Greek  or  an  Irishman.  May  I  go  a  step 
further,  and  say  that  the  same  freedom  to  express 
the  tradition  within  them  must  be  extended  to  the 
Americans  of  the  old  stock,  even  those  who  hold  a 
grateful  love  for  France  (some  of  them  recently 
have  died  for  that),  even  those  who  love  England 
for  her  long  struggle  for  political  liberty.  I  cannot 
feel  that  Agnes  Repplier,  Lyman  Abbott,  George 
Haven  Putnam  and  the  American  Rights  League 
are  deserving  of  a  certain  fine  intellectual  scorn 
which  Randolph  Bourne  and  Max  Eastman  have 
applied  to  them.  The  American  Rights  League  is 
entitled  to  the  same  open  field  and  the  same  respect 
which  the  Menorah  Society  should  receive.  Why 
does  Mr.  Bourne  applaud  the  one  and  lash  the 
other'?  I  trust  he  will  welcome  both.  What  I  think 
Bourne,  James  Oppenheim,  Walter  Lippmann  and 
Max  Eastman  have  failed  to  see  is  that  the  old 
American  stock  (of  diverse  race  but  common  tradi- 
tion) had  a  right  to  respond  vigorously  to  this  war, 
where  their  inheritance  of  social,  legal  and  political 
ideas  were  battling  with  hostile  ideas.  Somewhere, 
at  some  point,  the  new  American  tradition  must 
plant  itself.  In  some  issue  it  must  take  root.  We 
of  the  old  stock  sought  to  make  this  war  the  issue. 
We  failed.    All  right.    It  is  now  your  turn.    In  the 


THE  HYPHENATES  149 

open  arena  of  discussion  the  ideas  of  all  of  us  must 
collide  into  harmony.  I  can  make  clear  the  difficulty 
one  has  in  reaffirming  the  old  American  idea  by  quot- 
ing from  the  letter  of  an  American  editor  in  response 
to  what  the  chapters  of  this  book  are  stating : 

"It  seems  so  curiously  out  of  focus  in  its  estimation  of 
the  Old,  the  vanishing,  America.  Do  you  really  believe 
that  Old  America  should  be  raised  from  the  dead : — The 
America  of  convenient  transcendentalism  where  religion 
allowed  a  whole  race  to  devote  its  body  and  spirit  to  ma- 
terial aggrandizement?  If  you  blame  America  for  Chris- 
tian Science  optimism,  you  must  remember  that  Emerson 
and  Whitman  were  our  teachers.  If  you  blame  America 
for  not  taking  part  in  the  European  war,  you  must  re- 
member that  Washington  told  us  to  keep  out  of  'entangling 
alliances.'  It  is  historic  America  that  was  grossly  material, 
out  of  which  our  vast  industrialism  sprang  with  its  im- 
portation of  cheap  labor.  But  the  Garden  of  Eden  always 
lies  behind  us,  and  nothing  is  commoner  than  finding 
Paradise  in  the  past." 

What  I  have  tried  to  say  is  that  the  tradition  of 
a  nation  is  not  a  dead  thing,  locked  in  the  past.  It 
is  a  living  thing,  operating  on  the  present.  A  tradi- 
tion is  a  shared  experience,  governing  present  life. 
The  State  needs  to  cohere  and  find  itself  and  estab- 
lish a  cultural  consciousness,  blended  from  manifold 
contributions.  It  is  destructive  to  have  new  swirl- 
ing elements  ceaselessly  driving  through  the  mass. 
So  I  have  protested  against  the  too  ready  and  ruth- 
less discarding  of  the  cultural  consciousness  be- 
queathed us  by  the  older  American  stock.  While  the 


150    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ideas  imbedded  in  that  consciousness  will  never  again 
be  in  sole  command,  I  believe  that  they  should  be 
more  potent  than  they  are  to-day.  I  believe  that 
politically  they  have  a  living  value  for  us,  and  that 
we  persistently  underestimate  the  English  contribu- 
tion to  freedom  and  justice.  I  deny  that  my  desire 
that  these  ideas  shall  prevail  is  an  attempt  to  locate 
the  Garden  of  Eden  and  Paradise  in  the  smoky 
past.  It  is,  instead,  the  wish  to  see  our  country 
appropriate  a  particular  political  contribution  from 
the  English  stock,  exactly  as  it  needs  to  appropriate 
certain  social  values  from  the  Italians  and  the 
Greeks,  and  many  very  definite  spiritual  ideas  from 
the  culture  of  the  Jews. 

What  is  the  solution  of  these  diverse  elements? 
What  blend  can  we  obtain  from  a  score  of  mixtures'? 
How  fashion  a  civilization  that  shall  absorb  and 
assimilate  those  blood-strains  and  traditional  be- 
liefs? I  think  the  one  clear  answer  lies  in  the  crea- 
tion of  free  institutions,  which  shall  answer  a  com- 
mon need,  and  which  shall  violate  the  instinctive 
life  and  traditions  of  none.  Those  free  institutions 
will  be  the  product  of  education,  legislation,  Co- 
operation, Trades  Unionism  and  Syndicalism, 
municipal  and  State  ownership,  and  widely  spread 
private  ownership  and  enterprise.  The  organized 
State  under  democratic  control  will  be  the  thing 
aimed  at.  But  these  free  institutions  must  gradu- 
ally extend  over  areas  far  wider  than  vocational 


THE  HYPHENATES  150a 

training  and  economic  well-being.  They  should 
seek  to  offer  free  expression  to  the  fully-functioning 
mind  in  art,  science,  ethics  and  religion.  In  this 
way  they  will  give  a  good  life.  We  have  the 
shadowy  beginnings  of  such  institutions  in  the  pub- 
lic school  and  library.  But  we  have  nothing  like 
the  Danish  or  English  cooperative  movement.  Our 
institution  of  property  affords  us  nothing  like  the 
peasant  proprietorship  of  Ireland. 

No  apter  illustration  of  how  little  we  have  tackled 
our  job  can  be  found  than  in  American  Socialism. 
There  is  no  American  Socialism.  Orthodox  social- 
ism in  America  is  dead  doctrine,  brought  across  by 
German  and  Russian  revolutionaries,  reacting  on 
their  peculiar  environment,  and  then  exhumed  in  a 
new  country.  Meanwhile  a  great  vital  movement 
toward  democratic  control  goes  on  in  Europe,  in 
Trades  Unionism,  Cooperation  and  municipal  and 
State  ownership.  Our  socialist  locals  repeat  formulse 
which  Shaw,  the  Webbs,  Rowntree,  Wallas,  Kaut- 
sky,  Vandervelde  and  Herve  outgrew  a  generation 
ago.  It  is  here  I  hold  that  the  old  American  stock 
can  do  a  service  in  interpreting  American  conditions 
to  our  recent  arrivals. 

But  if  we  continue  to  leave  the  door  open  we 
shall  continue  to  be  swamped,  and  we  shall  employ 
our  little  hasty  ready-made  devices  for  turning  peas- 
ants with  a  thousand  years  of  inherited  characteris- 
tics into  citizens.    We  shatter  them  against  our  en- 


i5ob  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

vironment,  and  then  are  astonished  that  their 
thwarted  instincts,  trained  to  another  world,  revenge 
themselves  in  political  corruption,  abnormal  vices, 
and  murderous  "gunman"  activities.  Psychologists 
like  Ross  warn  us  in  vain. 

These  overlapping  hordes  of  "aliens"  destroy  the 
economic  basis  on  which  alone  free  institutions  can 
be  reared.  People,  to  whom  we  cannot  afford  to 
pay  a  living  wage,  or  for  whom  we  do  not  care  to 
arrange  a  living  wage,  will  not  help  us  in  creating 
free  institutions.  Instead,  they  are  manipulated  by 
the  industrial  oligarchy  into  a  force  for  breaking 
down  the  standard  of  living  of  all  workers.  A  reso- 
lute restriction  of  immigration  is  not  a  discrimina- 
tion against  any  race.  It  is  the  first  step  toward 
unlocking  the  capacities  of  the  races  already  among 
us.  The  reason  for  stopping  immigration,  then,  is 
economic.  It  rests  in  the  fact  that  our  wage-scale 
and  standard  of  living  are  being  shot  to  pieces  by 
the  newcomers.  As  the  result  our  existent  institu- 
tions are  not  developing  in  liberal  directions,  and 
we  are  failing  to  create  new  free  institutions.  It 
requires  a  somewhat  stable  population,  and  a  fairly 
uniform  economic  basis  to  create  a  Cooperative 
movement,  like  that  in  Ireland,  or  a  Trade  Union 
movement,  like  that  in  Australia. 

Slowly  the  new  order  is  coming,  the  day  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  nationalities,  where  men  from 
many  lands,  drawing  their  spiritual  reserves  from 


THE  HYPHENATES  150c 

the  home  that  nourished  their  line  through  the  long 
generations,  will  yet  render  loyal  citizenship  to  the 
new  State  which  harbors  them  and  gives  them  a  good 
life.  The  task  of  America  is  to  create  that  Com- 
monwealth, that  entity  which  men  gladly  serve, 
and  for  which  at  need  they  willingly  die.  Our  poli- 
tics have  not  yet  held  that  appeal.  Not  yet  can  an 
American  of  these  recent  years  stand  off  from  the 
stream  of  his  experience,  saying,  "What  does  it 
mean  that  I  am  an  American?"  and  answer  it  in  the 
high  terms  which  a  Frenchman  can  use.  Fifty  years 
ago  the  American  could  answer  in  fairly  definite 
terms.  But  does  our  recent  history  mean  much  to 
Czech  or  Russian  Jew  or  Calabrian  who  has  settled 
among  us?  It  does  not.  The  stirring  of  their  blood 
responds  to  another  history  than  ours.  Shall  we 
take  away  their  tradition  from  them?  We  cannot 
if  we  would.  What  we  can  do  with  their  help  is 
to  create  free  institutions  which  will  win  them  to  a 
new  allegiance,  and  this  will  slowly  root  itself  in 
the  fiber  of  their  line. 

For  a  few  generations  they  will  continue  at  time 
of  stress  to  hear  the  call  of  their  old  home,  as  a  bird 
in  the  autumn  takes  the  call  of  the  South.  The 
Serb  will  return  to  his  mountains  when  the  battle- 
line  is  drawn,  as  he  returned  five  years  ago.  The 
German  will  go  back  to  his  barracks  when  Russia 
begins  to  spread  toward  the  West.  And  over  those 
that  do  not  go  back  a  great  restlessness  will  come, 


i5od  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  they  will  torment  themselves,  like  a  caged  bird 
in  the  month  of  flight.  But  with  each  generation 
the  call  will  grow  fainter,  till  finally  the  old  tra- 
dition is  subdued  and  the  citizen  is  domesticated. 
In  this  way  only  can  the  new  allegiance  and  in^ 
stinctive  sense  of  nationality  be  created,  growing 
very  gradually  out  of  free  institutions. 

Out  of  free  institutions  in  State,  property,  re- 
ligion and  marriage,  ever-developing  to  fit  a  de- 
veloping people;  out  of  the  unfolding  process  of 
law,  escaping  from  legalism  and  applying  psychol- 
ogy to  human  relationship;  out  of  an  education, 
sanctioned  by  human  interest,  and  devoted  not  only 
to  vocational  training  but  to  the  sense  of  beauty 
and  wonder;  out  of  vast  movements  of  the  mass- 
people  toward  democratic  control;  there  will  some 
day  grow  the  new  American  tradition,  which  in  the 
fullness  of  time  will  take  possession  of  the  heart 
of  these  diverse  races  and  clashing  nationalities.  It 
will  not  root  itself  and  grow  in  the  years  of  "natu- 
ralization," nor  yet  in  one  or  two  generations.  But 
in  a  hundred  or  two  hundred  years  it  will  coalesce 
infinitely  repellant  particles  and  gently  conquer 
antagonisms,  and  in  that  day,  which  not  even  our 
children's  children  will  see,  there  will  at  last  emerge 
the  American  Commonwealth. 


VI 


THE    REMEDY 


I  HAVE  made  out  the  best  case  I  can  for  our 
people.  These  chapters  have  listed  every  ex- 
cuse that  can  reasonably  be  given  for  our  fail- 
ure to  declare  ourselves  on  the  moral  issue  of  this 
war.  They  have  said  that  a  careless,  busy  folk,  like 
those  of  the  Middle  West,  need  many  facts  to 
enable  them  to  see  where  the  truth  lies.  They  have 
pointed  out  how  short-sighted  is  the  foreign  pol- 
icy of  the  Allies  which  gives  few  facts  to  the  Amer- 
ican public.  They  have  shown  how  the  best  of 
our  radicals  have  failed  to  think  clearly  because 
they  have  been  befuddled  by  a  vague  pseudo-inter- 
nationalism. I  have  stated  what  I  believe  to  be  the 
falsity  in  our  present-day  conception  of  Europe,  the 
self-complacency  in  our  monopoly  of  freedom  and 
justice;  and  I  have  tried  to  reveal  how  that  assump- 
tion of  merit  blinded  our  eyes  to  the  struggles  of 
other  peoples  for  the  same  causes.  I  have  blamed 
our  failure  on  Germany  and  on  England.  But 
after  every  explanation  has  been  made,  it  is  still 

151 


152    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

true  that  our  people  ought  to  have  been  sensitive. 
At  a  great  moment  of  history  we  failed  of  great- 
ness. There  remains  a  shame  to  us  that  we  held 
aloof.  There  was  no  organized  campaign  of  facts 
needed  to  convince  France  that  we  were  fighting 
for  human  rights  in  our  Revolution.  Three  thou- 
sand miles  of  water  did  not  drown  the  appeal  of 
our  extremity.  But  to-day  our  leaders  are  so  be- 
wildered by  dreams  of  universal  brotherhood  that 
they  overlook  our  blood-brother  on  the  Marne.  Our 
common  people  have  their  eyes  to  their  work,  and 
do  not  look  up,  as  the  workers  of  Lancashire  looked 
up  with  cheer  and  sympathy  when  we  rocked  in  the 
balance  of  1863. 

This  war  has  shown  to  us  that  we  are  not  at  the 
level  of  earlier  days.  We  have  lost  our  national 
unity,  our  sense  of  direction.  The  war  has  revealed 
in  us  an  unpreparedness  in  foreign  and  domestic  pol- 
icy. It  is  a  curse  to  know  one's  weakness  unless  one 
cures  it.  So  this  war  will  not  leave  us  blessed  until 
we  take  a  program  of  action.  It  is  a  waste  of 
time  to  write  a  book  on  the  war  except  to  convince 
and  move  to  action. 

The  steps  are  clear. 

Our  first  step  is  to  set  our  house  in  order.  We 
need  to  recover  our  self -consciousness,  to  restate 
what  we  mean  by  America.  A  half  million  new- 
comers each  year  will  not  help  us  to  find  ourselves. 


THE  REMEDY  153 

We  shall  be  the  better  friends  of  freedom  if  we 
digest  our  present  welter.  Let  us  fearlessly  and 
at  once  advocate  a  stringent  restriction  of  immigra- 
tion. Our  citizenship  has  become  somewhat  cheap. 
Our  ideals  have  become  somewhat  mixed.  Let  us 
take  time  to  locate  the  direction  in  which  we  wish 
to  go,  and  decide  on  the  goal  at  which  we  aim. 
"Thou,  Oh !  my  country,  must  forever  endure,"  said 
a  famous  patriot ;  but  in  a  few  years  his  country  had 
been  melted  down  into  an  autocracy.  We  cannot 
rely  for  all  time  on  luck  and  happy  drift.  Size,  num- 
bers, the  physical  economic  conquest  of  a  continent 
— these  are  not  a  final  good.  They  are  at  best  only 
means  toward  worthy  living.  It  is  easier  to  rush 
in  fresh  masses  of  cheap  labor  than  it  is  to  deal 
with  the  workers  already  here  as  members  of  a 
free  community,  aid  them  in  winning  a  high  standard 
of  living,  and  establish  with  them  an  industrial 
democracy.  The  cheapest  way  of  digging  our 
ditches  and  working  our  factories,  and  sewing  our 
shirts,  is  of  course  to  continue  holding  open  our  flood 
gates  and  letting  the  deluge  come.  It  is  the  clever 
policy  of  our  exploiters,  and  the  sentimental  policy 
of  the  rest  of  us  who  love  to  be  let  alone,  if  only 
we  can  cover  our  unconcern  with  a  humanitarian 
varnish.  But  the  result  of  it  is  the  America  of  to- 
day with  its  oligarchy  of  industrial  captains  and 
bankers,  with  its  aristocracy  of  labor,  made  up  of 


154    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

powerful  trades  unions  and  restricted  "Brother- 
hoods," and  with  its  unskilled  alien  masses  of  mine 
and  factory  labor,  unorganized,  exploited.  Let  us 
begin  to  build  the  better  America  by  sacrificing  the 
easy  immediate  benefits  of  unrestricted  immigration. 
Our  second  step  is  to  teach  our  tradition  to  the 
hundred  million  already  here.  It  is  a  large  enough 
classroom.  We  can  advertise  for  new  pupils  when 
our  present  group  matriculates.  When  it  has 
matriculated,  there  will  be  no  popularity  for  phrases 
like  "He  kept  us  out  of  war,"  nor  for  songs  of  "I 
didn't  raise  my  boy  to  be  a  soldier."  The  teaching 
of  that  tradition  will  reveal  the  interweaving  of  the 
American  and  the  French  Revolutions  as  products 
of  a  single  impulse  toward  world  liberation.  If  we 
had  known  our  history,  we  should  have  answered 
the  need  of  France,  as  Hall,  Chapman,  Thaw, 
Seeger,  and  many  more  answered  it  who  have  laid 
down  their  lives  for  their  friend,  France.  The 
teaching  of  the  American  tradition  will  reveal  to 
our  awakened  astonished  minds  that  our  policy  has 
not  been  that  of  neutrality  toward  oppressed  peo- 
ples like  the  Belgians.  It  will  reveal  that  the  Brit- 
ish fleet  has  served  us  well  from  the  time  of  Can- 
ning down  to  Manila  Bay.  It  will  stir  in  us  loyal- 
ties that  have  long  been  asleep.  It  will  show  what 
a  phrase  like  "Government  for  the  people"  has 
meant  in  terms  of  social  legislation.     It  will  point 


THE  REMEDY  155 

to  the  long  road  we  must  tread  before  we  reach  that 
ideal  goal.  We  cannot  leave  the  teaching  of  our 
tradition  to  the  public  schools  alone.  Courses  of 
evening  lectures  for  the  people,  the  newspapers  and 
periodicals,  clergymen  and  economists  and  social 
workers,  all  must  help. 

Our  third  step  is  a  deep  understanding  sympathy 
with  the  forces  in  the  world  making  for  righteous- 
ness. We  should  have  been  sensitive  enough  to  see 
the  right  and  the  wrong  of  the  present  war.  But 
that  chance  has  gone  by.  Let  us  now  make  ready 
to  contribute  to  the  future.  The  fundamental  ques- 
tion is  this:  Are  the  democracies  of  the  world  to 
stand  together,  or  is  the  world-fight  for  freedom  to 
be  made,  with  our  nation  on  the  side-lines?  The 
whole  emphasis  of  the  world's  emotion  has  shifted 
from  war  to  peace.  When  thought  follows  this  emo- 
tion and  rationalizes  it,  we  can  begin  constructive 
work.  The  test  of  our  desire  for  peace  will  be  found 
in  this:  Do  we  mean  business?  Pacifism  is  value- 
less, because  it  is  a  vague  emotion.  Peace  is  a  thing 
won  by  thought  and  effort.  It  is  not  alone  a  "state 
of  mind."  If  we  are  willing  to  give  guarantees  by 
army  and  navy,  and  to  back  up  protest  by  force, 
we  can  serve  the  cause  of  peace.  But  if  we  continue 
our  "internationalism"  of  recent  years,  we  shall  not 
be  admitted  to  any  such  effective  league  of  peace 
as  France  and  England  will  form.    We  must  take 


156    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

our  place  b)/  the  side  of  the  nations  who  mean  to 
make  freedom  and  justice  prevail  throughout  the 
world. 

Our  fourth  step  will  be  that  measure  of  prepared- 
ness which  will  render  us  effective  in  playing  our 
part  in  world  history.  We  cannot  go  on  forever 
asking  the  English  fleet  to  supply  the  missing  mem- 
bers in  our  Monroe  Doctrine.  We  cannot  go  on 
forever  developing  a  rich  ripeness,  trusting  that  no 
hand  will  pluck  us.  In  a  competitive  world,  which 
builds  Krupp  guns,  we  cannot  place  our  sole  reliance 
in  a  good-nature  which  will  be  touched  to  friendli- 
ness because  we  are  a  special  people.  That  pre- 
paredness will  not  stop  with  enriching  munition 
makers,  and  playing  into  the  hands  of  Eastern  bank- 
ers. It  will  be  a  preparedness  which  enlists  labor, 
by  safeguarding  wages  and  hours.  It  is  the  pre- 
paredness of  an  ever-encroaching  equality:  a  de- 
mocracy of  free  citizens,  prosperous  not  in  spots  but 
in  a  wide  commonalty,  disciplined  not  only  by  na- 
tional service  of  arms,  but  by  the  fundamental  dis- 
cipline of  an  active  effective  citizenship.  It  is  a  pre- 
paredness which  will  call  on  the  women  to  share 
the  burden  of  citizenship.  It  is  a  preparedness 
which  mobilizes  all  the  inner  forces  of  a  nation  by 
clearing  the  ground  for  equality.  It  will  be  a  pre- 
paredness not  against  an  evil  day,  but  for  the  fur- 
therance of  the  great  hopes  of  the  race. 


SECTION  III 

THE  GERMANS  THAT  ROSE  FROM  THE 
DEAD 


LORD    BRYCE    ON    GERMAN    METHODS 

IN  presenting  the  facts  that  follow  of  the  be- 
havior of  the  German  Army,  I  am  fortunate 
in  being  able  to  introduce  them  with  a  state- 
ment written  for  me  by  Lord  Bryce.  The  words 
of  Lord  Bryce  carry  more  weight  with  the  American 
people  than  those  of  any  other  man  in  Europe,  and 
his  analysis  of  the  methods  of  the  German  Staff  is 
authoritative,  because  he  was  the  Chairman  of  what 
is  known  as  the  "Bryce  Committee,"  which  issued 
the  famous  report  on  German  "frightfulness." 
When  I  told  him  that  our  country  would  respond 
to  a  statement  from  him,  he  asked  me  to  submit 
questions,  and  to  these  questions  he  has  written  an- 
swers. 

The  first  question  submitted  to  Viscount  Bryce 
was  this: 

"America  has  been  startled  by  Cardinal  Mer- 
cier's  statement  concerning  the  deportation  of  Bel- 
gian men.  Our  people  will  appreciate  a  statement 
from  you  as  to  the  meaning  of  this  latest  German 
move." 

159 


i6o    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Lord  Bryce  replied  to  me : 

"Nothing  could  be  more  shocking  than  this  whole- 
sale carrying  away  of  men  from  Belgium.  I  know 
of  no  case  in  European  history  to  surpass  it.  Not 
even  in  the  Thirty  Years  War  were  there  such 
things  as  the  German  Government  has  done,  first 
and  last  in  Belgium.  This  last  case  is  virtual 
slavery.  The  act  is  like  that  of  those  Arab  slave 
raiders  in  Africa  who  carried  off  negroes  to  the  coast 
to  sell.  And  the  severity  is  enhanced  because  these 
Belgians  and  the  work  forcibly  extracted  from  them 
are  going  to  be  used  against  their  own  people.  Hav- 
ing invaded  Belgium,  and  murdered  many  hundreds, 
indeed  even  thousands,  among  them  women  and 
children,  who  could  not  be  accused  of  'sniping,'  the 
German  military  government  dislocated  the  indus- 
trial system  of  the  community.  They  carried  off 
all  the  raw  materials  of  industry  and  most  of  the 
machinery  in  factories,  and  then  having  thus  de- 
prived the  inhabitants  of  work,  the  invaders  used 
this  unemployment  as  the  pretext  for  deporting 
them  in  very  large  numbers  to  places  where  nothing 
will  be  known  of  their  fate.  They  were  not  even 
allowed  to  take  leave  of  their  wives  and  children. 
Many  of  them  may  never  be  heard  of  again.  And 
von  Bissing  calls  this  'a  humanitarian  measure.' 
Actually,  it  is  all  a  part  of  the  invasion  policy.  They 
defend  it  as  being  'war,'  as  they  justify  everything. 


BRYCE  ON  GERMAN  METHODS     161 

however  inhuman,  done  because  the  military  needs 
of  Germany  are  alleged  to  call  for  it.  It  shows 
how  hard  pressed  the  military  power  is  beginning 
to  find  itself  at  this  latest  stage  of  the  war.  It  is 
said  that  Attila,  when  he  was  bringing  his  hosts  of 
Huns  out  of  Asia  for  his  great  assault  on  Western 
Europe,  forced  the  conquered  tribes  into  his  army, 
and  made  them  a  part  of  his  invasion.  I  can  hardly 
think  of  a  like  case  since  then.  In  principle  it  re- 
sembles the  Turkish  plan  when  they  formed  the 
Janissaries.  The  Turks  used  their  Christian  sub- 
jects, taken  quite  young  and  made  Moslems,  and 
enrolled  them  as  soldiers  (to  fight  against  Chris- 
tians) to  fill  their  armies,  of  which  they  were  the 
most  efficient  part.  These  Belgians  are  not  indeed 
actually  made  to  fight,  but  they  are  being  forced 
to  do  the  labor  of  war,  some  of  them  probably  dig- 
ging trenches,  or  making  shells,  or  working  in  quar- 
ries to  extract  chalk  to  make  cement  for  war  pur- 
poses. The  carrying  off  of  young  girls  from  Lille 
was  terrible  enough,  and  it  seemed  to  us  at  the  time 
that  nothing  could  be  worse.  But  the  taking  away 
of  many  thousand  of  the  Belgian  population  from 
their  homes  to  work  against  their  own  countrymen, 
with  all  the  mental  torture  that  separation  from 
one's  family  brings — this  is  the  most  shocking  thing 
we  have  yet  heard  of.  I  have  been  shown  in  confi- 
dence the  reports  received  from  Belgium  of  what 


i62    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

has  happened  there.  The  details  given  and  the 
sources  they  come  from  satisfied  me  of  their  sub- 
stantial truth.  The  very  excuses  the  German  au- 
thorities are  putting  forward  admit  the  facts.  In 
Belgian  Luxemburg  I  hear  that  they  have  been  try- 
ing to  stop  the  existing  employment  in  order  to  have 
an  excuse  for  taking  off  the  men." 

The  second  question  read: 

"How  are  such  acts  of  German  severity  to  be  ac- 
counted for?" 

Lord  Bryce  replied : 

"When  the  early  accounts  of  the  atrocious  con- 
duct of  the  German  Government  in  Belgium  were 
laid  before  the  Committee  over  which  I  presided 
they  seemed  hardly  credible.  But  when  we  sifted 
them,  going  carefully  through  every  case,  and  re- 
jecting all  those  that  seemed  doubtful,  we  found 
such  a  mass  of  concurrent  testimony  coming  from 
different  sources,  and  carefully  tested  by  the  law- 
yers who  examined  the  witnesses,  that  we  could  not 
doubt  that  the  facts  which  remained  were  beyond 
question.  You  ask  how  German  officers  came  to 
give  such  orders.  The  Committee  tried  to  answer 
that  question  in  a  passage  of  their  report.  They 
point  out  that  for  the  Gennan  officer  caste  morality 
and  right  stop  when  war  begins.  The  German 
Chancellor  admitted  that  they  had  done  wrong  in 
invading  Belgium,  but  they  would  go  on  and  hack 


BRYCE  ON  GERMAN  METHODS     163 

their  way  through.  The  German  military  class  had 
brooded  so  long  on  war  that  their  minds  had  be- 
come morbid.  To  Prussian  officers  war  has  become, 
when  the  interests  of  the  State  require  it,  a  sort  of 
sacred  mission:  everything  may  be  done  by  and  for 
the  omnipotent  State.  Pity  and  morality  vanish, 
and  are  superseded  by  the  new  standard  justifying 
every  means  that  conduces  to  success.  'This,'  said 
the  Committee,  'is  a  specifically  military  doctrine, 
the  outcome  of  a  theory  held  by  a  ruling  caste  who 
have  brooded  and  thought,  written  and  talked  and 
dreamed  about  war  until  they  have  fallen  under  its 
obsession  and  been  hypnotized  by  its  spirit.'  You 
will  find  these  doctrines  set  forth  in  'Kriegsbrauch 
im  Landkriege,'  the  German  Official  Monograph  on 
the  usages  of  war  on  land,  issued  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  German  Staff.  What  military  needs  sug- 
gest becomes  lawful.  You  will  find  in  that  book  a 
justification  for  everything  the  German  Army  has 
done,  for  seizing  hostages,  i.  e.,  innocent  inhabitants 
of  an  invaded  area,  and  shooting  them  if  necessary. 
You  will  find  what  amounts  to  a  justification  even 
of  assassination.  The  German  soldiers'  diaries  cap- 
tured on  prisoners  offer  the  proof  that  the  German 
officers  acted  upon  this  principle.  'This  is  not  the 
only  case  that  history  records  in  which  a  false  theory, 
disguising  itself  as  loyalty  to  a  State  or  a  Church, 
has  perverted  the  conception  of  Duty,  and  become 


i64    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

a  source  of  danger  to  the  world.'  This  doctrine 
spread  outside  military  circles.  I  do  not  venture 
to  say  that  it  has  infected  anything  like  the  whole 
people.  I  hope  that  it  did  not.  But  national  pride 
and  national  vanity  were  enlisted,  and  it  became  a 
widespread  doctrine  accepted  by  the  military  and 
even  by  many  civilians.  The  Prussians  are  far  more 
penetrated  by  the  military  spirit  than  the  Americans 
or  English  or  French,  and  such  a  doctrine  minis- 
tered to  the  greatness  of  the  power  of  Prussia.  It 
was  part  of  Prussian  military  theory  and  sometimes 
of  practice  a  century  ago.  But  in  the  rest  of  Ger- 
many it  is  a  new  thing.  There  was  nothing  of  the 
kind  in  southern  Germany  when  I  knew  it  fifty  years 
ago. 

"In  an  army  there  will  be  individual  cases  of  hor- 
rible brutality — plunder,  rape,  ill-treatment  of  ci- 
vilians. There  will  always  be  men  of  criminal  in- 
stinct whose  passion  is  loosed  by  the  immunities  of 
war  conditions.  Drunkenness,  moreover,  may  turn 
a  decent  soldier  into  a  wild  beast.  But  most  of 
the  crimes  committed  in  Belgium  were  not  commit- 
ted by  drunken  troops.  The  German  peasant,  the 
'Hans'  whom  we  know,  is  a  good,  simple,  kindly 
sort  of  fellow,  as  are  the  rural  folk  in  every  country. 
But  remember  in  the  German  army  there  is  a  habit 
of  implicit  obedience.  The  officers  are  extremely 
severe  in  military  discipline.    They  will  shoot  read- 


BRYCE  ON  GERMAN  METHODS     165 

ily  for  a  minor  infraction.  It  is  the  officers  more 
than  the  private  soldiers  that  were  to  blame.  And 
some  of  the  officers  were  shocked  by  what  they  were 
forced  to  do.  'I  am  merely  executing  orders  and  I 
should  be  punished  if  I  did  not  execute  them,'  said 
more  than  one  officer  whose  words  were  recorded. 
How  can  an  officer  in  war  time  disobey  the  orders 
of  the  supreme  military  command^  He  would  be 
shot,  and  if  he  were  to  say  he  could  not  remain  in 
an  army  where  he  was  expected  to  commit  crimes, 
to  retire  in  war  time,  if  he  were  permitted  to  retire, 
would  mean  disgrace  to  his  name.  It  is  the  spirit 
of  the  Higher  German  Army  Command  that  is  to 
blame.  The  authority  that  issued  the  orders  is 
guilty.  The  German  people  as  a  whole  are  not 
cruel,  but  many  of  them  have  been  infected  by  this 
war  spirit. 

"And  we  little  realize  how  strict  is  the  German 
censorship.  The  German  people  have  been  fed  with 
falsehoods.  So  far  are  they  from  believing  m  the 
record  of  their  own  army's  cruelties,  that  they  have 
been  made  to  believe  in  cruelties  alleged  to  have 
been  committed  by  French  and  English  troops.  They 
have  been  fed  on  stories  of  soldiers  with  their  eyes 
put  out  by  Belgians.  The  Chancellor  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire  in  a  press  communication  said : 

"Belgian  girls  gouged  out  the  eyes  of  the  Ger- 
man wounded.     Officials  of  Belgian  cities  have  in- 


i66    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

vited  our  officers  to  dinner  and  shot  and  killed  them 
across  the  table.  Contrary  to  all  international  law, 
the  whole  civilian  population  of  Belgium  was  called 
out,  and  after  having  at  first  shown  friendliness,  car- 
ried on  in  the  rear  of  our  troops  terrible  warfare  with 
concealed  weapons.  Belgian  women  cut  the  throats 
of  soldiers  whom  they  had  quartered  in  their  homes 
while  they  were  sleeping." 

"There  was  no  truth  at  all  in  these  stories." 
The  next  question  was  submitted  as  follows : 
"Has  the  German  Government  made  any  effort  to 
prove  their  general  charges  and  to  disprove  the  de- 
tailed charges  of  your  report  and  the  report  made 
by  the  French  Government?" 
Lord  Bryce  writes  in  reply: 

"The  diaries  of  German  soldiers  referred  to  have 
been  published  throughout  the  world,  and  no  ques- 
tion has  been  raised  of  their  authenticity.  They  con- 
tain testimony  to  outrages  committed  in  Belgium 
and  France  that  is  overwhelming.  No  answer  is 
possible.  The  German  Government  have  never 
made  a  reply  to  the  Report  of  the  British  Committee. 
They  attempted  to  answer  some  of  the  reports  made 
by  the  Belgian  Government.  But  their  answer  was 
really  an  admission  to  the  facts,  for  it  consisted  in 
allegations  that  Belgian  civilians  had  given  provoca- 
tion. They  endeavored  to  prove  that  Belgian  ci- 
vilians had  shot  at  them.     It  would  not  have  been 


BRYCE  ON  GERMAN  METHODS     167 

strange  if  some  civilians  had  shot  at  those  who  sud- 
denly burst  into  their  country,  but  no  proof  has 
ever  been  given  of  more  than  a  few  of  such  cases, 
nor  of  the  stories  of  outrages  committed  by  Bel- 
gian priests,  women  and  children  on  German  sol- 
diers. Even  if  such  occasional  shooting  by  civilians 
had  taken  place,  as  very  likely  it  did,  that  did  not 
justify  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  innocent  persons 
and  the  burning  of  whole  villages.  In  the  burning 
of  the  26  houses  at  Melle,  which  you  tell  me  you 
witnessed,  no  allegations  were  made  of  shooting  by 
civilians.  The  little  girl  murdered  at  Alost,  to  whom 
you  refer,  had  not  shot  at  the  Germans.  The 
woman,  eighty  years  old,  had  not  shot  at  them. 
These  severities  were  committed  as  a  method  to 
achieve  an  end.  That  end  was  to  terrorize  the 
civilian  population,  and  destroy  the  spiritual  re- 
sources of  the  nation." 

The  final  question  was  this: 

"As  the  result  of  this  war,  what  hope  nave  we 
of  reconstruction  and  an  altered  policy  in  Ger- 
many?" 

Viscount  Bryce  answered : 

"It  is  to  be  hoped  and  expected  that  the  Allies  will 
so  completely  defeat  Germany  as  to  discredit  the 
whole  military  system  and  the  ideas  out  of  which 
the  horrors  of  German  war  practice  have  developed. 
It  is  essential  to  inflict  a  defeat  sufficiently  decisive 


i68    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

in  the  eyes  of  the  German  people  that  they  will  have 
done  with  their  military  caste  and  its  nefarious  doc- 
trine, and  it  is  essential  to  discredit  the  methods 
themselves — discredit  them  by  their  failure — in  so 
thorough  a  manner  that  no  nation  will  ever  use  them 
again.  The  way,  then,  of  ending  what  is  called 
'trightfulness'  is  by  a  complete  victory  over  it.  It 
is  our  task  to  show  that  shocking  military  practices 
and  total  disregard  of  right  do  not  succeed.  We 
must  bring  to  pass  the  judgment  of  facts  to  the  ef- 
fect that  such  methods  do  not  avail.  In  this  deter- 
mination our  British  people  are  unanimous  as  they 
have  never  been  before.  The  invasion  of  Belgium, 
the  atrocities  committed  there,  and  the  sinking  of 
the  hnsitania — these  three  series  of  acts  united  the 
whole  British  people  in  its  firm  resolve  to  prosecute 
the  war  to  a  complete  victory.  Now  on  the  top  of 
these  things  and  of  isolated  crimes  of  the  German 
Government,  like  the  shooting  of  Miss  Cavell  and 
Captain  Fryatt,  come  these  abominable  deportations 
of  Belgians  into  a  sort  of  slavery." 

In  all  communication  with  Lord  Bryce,  one  feels 
the  accurate  fair-minded  scholar.  He  is  without  heat 
and  partisanship.    He  added  in  a  note : 

"We  know  that  our  British  soldiers  fight  hard, 
but  they  fight  fair,  and  they  have  no  personal  hatred 
to  their  enemies.  I  have  been  at  the  British  front 
and  have  seen  their  spirit.    I  was  told  that  our  men 


BRYCE  ON  GERMAN  METHODS     169 

when  they  take  a  prisoner  often  clap  him  on  the 
back  and  give  him  a  cigarette.  There  is  no  personal 
hatred  among  our  officers  or  men.  Efforts  are  prop- 
erly made  here  at  home  to  keep  bitterness  against  the 
German  people  as  a  whole  from  the  minds  of  our 
people,  but  it  is  right  that  they  should  detest  and 
do  their  utmost  to  overthrow  the  system  that  has 
produced  this  war  and  has  made  it  so  horrible." 


II 


SOME   GERMAN    WAR  DIARIES 

I  HAVE  seen  the  original  diaries  of  the  German 
soldiers  in  the  anny  which  devastated  Belgium 
and  Northern  France.  Things  tumble  out  just 
as  they  happened,  hideous  acts,  unedited  thoughts. 
Phillips  Brooke  once  spoke  of  the  sensation  there 
would  be  if  the  contents  of  our  minds  were  dumped 
on  Boston  Common  for  people  to  see.  Here  is  the 
soul  of  the  German  people  spilled  out  into  writing. 
This  is  what  Germany  was  in  the  year  1914.  This 
record  left  by  dead  men  and  by  captured  men  is  a 
very  living  thing  to  me,  because  I  saw  these  Ger- 
man soldiers  at  their  work  of  burning  and  torture. 
Here  they  have  themselves  told  of  doing  the  very 
thing  I  saw  them  do.  We  must  not  miss  the  point 
of  their  proof,  written  and  signed  by  the  perpe- 
trators themselves.  It  is  the  proof  of  systematic 
massacre,  systematic  pillage,  systematic  arson. 

These  diaries  found  on  the  field  of  battle  were 
brought  to  the  French  General  Staff  along  with  the 
arms  and  equipments  of  the  dead  and  the  prisoners. 

170 


SOME  GERMAN  WAR  DIARIES      171 

They  are  written  by  the  soldiers  because  of  Article 
75  of  the  German  Instruction  for  Campaign  Service 
(Felddienst-Ordnung),  which  states  that  "these 
journals  of  war  serve  for  information  on  the  general 
operations,  and,  by  bringing  together  the  various  re- 
ports of  active  fighting,  they  are  the  basis  for  the 
later  definitive  histories  of  the  campaigns.  They 
should  be  kept  daily."  No  words  could  be  more  ex- 
actly prophetic.  Those  diaries  will  be  the  basis  of 
all  future  histories  of  the  war.  The  keeping  of  them 
is  obligatory  for  the  officers,  and  seems  to  be  volun- 
tary on  the  part  of  the  men,  but  with  a  measure 
of  implied  requirement.  So  stern  did  some  of  the 
soldiers  feel  the  military  requirement  to  be  that  they 
kept  on  with  their  record  up  to  the  point  of  death. 
Here  is  the  diary  of  a  soldier  of  the  Fourth  Com- 
pany of  the  Tenth  Battalion  of  Light  Infantry  Re- 
serves, which  he  was  writing  at  the  moment  he  was 
fatally  wounded. 

'Teh  bin  verwundet.  Behiite  dich  Gott.  Kiisse 
das  Kind.  Es  soil  fromm  sein."  And  then  the  pen- 
cil stops  forever.  The  writing  on  that  final  page 
of  all  is  regular  and  firm  up  to  the  "Ich  bin  ver- 
wundet." Those  last  four  sentences  are  each  just 
a  line  long,  as  if  each  was  a  cry.  He  wrote  the 
word  "Kiisse"  and  could  hardly  rally  himself.  His 
pencil  slips  into  three  marks  without  meaning,  then 
he  writes  "das  Kind."     I  trust  my  German  readers 


172    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

will  not  deny  me  the  use  of  this  diary.  It  is  the 
only  one  of  which  I  have  not  seen  the  original.  The 
photographic  reproduction  is  my  only  evidence  of 
this  flash  of  tenderness  among  a  thousand  acts  of 
infamy. 

The  diaries  are  little  black-covered  pocket  copy- 
books: the  sort  that  women  in  our  country  use  for 
the  family  accounts.  They  contain  about  lOO  pages. 
They  average  five  inches  in  length  and  three  in 
width.  A  few  of  the  diaries,  and  those  mostly  be- 
longing to  officers,  are  written  in  ink.  But  most 
of  them  are  in  pencil,  occasionally  in  black,  but  the 
large  majority  in  purple. 

Many  of  the  diaries  are  curt  records  of  daily 
marches  and  military  operations.  The  man  is  too 
tired  to  write  anything  but  distances,  names  of 
places,  engagements.  That  was  what  the  Great  Ger- 
man General  Staff  had  in  mind  in  ordering  the  prac- 
tice. They  could  not  foresee  what  would  slip 
through  into  the  record,  because  in  all  their  calcula- 
tions they  have  always  forgotten  the  human  spirit. 
Once  again  we  are  indebted  to  German  thorough- 
ness. The  causes,  the  objects,  the  methods  of  this 
war,  will  not  be  in  doubt,  as  in  other  wars  of  the 
past.  History  will  be  clear  in  dealing  its  judg- 
ments. Like  the  surgeon's  ray  on  a  fester,  German 
light  has  played  on  the  sore  spots.  So  the  soldiers 
have  gone  on  making  their  naked  records  of  crimes 


SOME  GERMAN  WAR  DIARIES      173 

committed  and  their  naive  mental  reactions  on  what 
they  did,  till  all  too  late  the  German  machine  for- 
bade further  exposure  of  the  national  soul.  But  the 
faithful  peasant  fingers  had  written  what  all  eternity 
cannot  annul. 

"These  booklets,  stained,  bruised,  sometimes  per- 
forated by  bayonet  or  torn  by  splinters  of  shell,  the 
pencilings  in  haste,  day  by  day,  in  spite  of  fatigue, 
in  spite  even  of  wounds" — they  are  the  most  human 
documents  of  the  war. 

This  privilege  of  working  with  the  originals  them- 
selves was  extended  by  the  Ministry  of  War.  The 
General  Staff  issued  a  Laissez-Passer,  and  gave  me 
an  introduction  to  the  fine  white-haired  old  Lieu- 
tenant, who  is  a  Russian  and  German  scholar.  To- 
gether we  went  word  by  word  over  the  booklets.  I 
was  impressed  by  the  fair-minded  attitude  of  my  co- 
worker. "An  honest  man,"  he  said,  when  we  came 
to  Harlak's  record.  "Un  brave  soldat,"  he  declared 
of  the  old  reservist,  who  protested  against  murder. 
He  was  not  trying  to  make  a  case.  He  had  no  need 
to  make  a  case.  The  pity  of  it  is  that  the  case 
has  been  so  thoroughly  made  by  German  hands. 
These  diaries  have  not  been  doctored  in  the  smallest 
detail.  There  they  are,  as  they  were  taken  from 
the  body  of  the  dead  man  and  the  pocket  of  the 
prisoners.  The  room  where  we  worked  is  stuffed 
with  the  booklets  of  German  soldiers.     Shelves  are 


174    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

lined  with  the  black-bound  diaries  and  the  little  red 
books  of  identification  carried  by  each  soldier.  They 
overflow  upon  tables.  In  this  room  and  a  suite  ad- 
joining sit  the  official  translators  of  the  French  Gen- 
eral Staff.  I  have  purposely  selected  certain  of  my 
examples  from  the  official  reports  of  the  French  Gov- 
ernment. I  wanted  to  verify  for  American  "neu- 
trals" that  no  slightest  word  had  been  altered,  that 
no  insertions  had  been  made. 

My  first  diary  was  that  of  a  Saxon  officer  of  the 
Eighth  Company,  of  the  178th  Regiment,  of  the  XII 
Army  Corps.  He  makes  his  entry  for  26  August, 
1914. 

"The  lovely  village  of  Gue-d'Hossus,  apparently 
entirely  innocent,  has  been  given  to  the  flames.  A 
cyclist  is  said  to  have  fallen  from  his  machine,  and 
in  so  doing  his  rifle  was  discharged,  so  they  fired  at 
him.  Accordingly  the  male  inhabitants  were  cast 
into  the  flames.  Such  atrocities  are  not  to  happen 
again,  one  hopes." 

The  German  phrases  carry  the  writer's  sense  of 
outrage:  "Das  wunderschone  Dorf  Gue-d'Hossus 
soil  ganz  unschuldig  in  Flammen  gegangen  sein. 
.  .  .  Man  hat  mannliche  Einwohner  einfach  in  die 
Flammen  geworfen.  Solche  Scheusslichkeiten  Kom- 
men  hoffentlich  nich  wieder  vor." 

He  adds:  "At  Laffe,  about  200  men  have  been 
shot.    There  it  was  an  example  for  the  place ;  it  was 


SOME  GERMAN  WAR  DIARIES      175 

inevitable  for  the  innocent  to  suffer.  Even  so  there 
ought  to  be  a  verification  of  mere  suspicions  of  guilt 
before  aiming  a  fusillade  at  everybody." 

In  the  village  of  Bouvignes  on  August  23,  1914, 
he  and  his  men  entered  a  private  home. 

"There  on  the  floor  was  the  body  of  the  owner. 
In  the  interior  our  men  had  destroyed  everything 
exactly  like  vandals.  .  .  .  The  sight  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  village  who  had  been  shot  beggars 
any  descriptions.  The  volley  had  nearly  decapitated 
certain  of  them.  Every  house  to  the  last  comer  had 
been  searched  and  so  the  inhabitants  brought  out 
from  their  hiding-places.  The  men  were  shot.  The 
women  and  children  put  in  the  convent.  From  this 
convent  shooting  has  come,  so  the  convent  will  be 
burned.  Only  through  the  giving  up  of  the  guilty 
and  the  paying  of  15,000  francs  can  it  save  itself." 

The  German  phrases  of  f rightfulness  have  a  sound 
that  matches  their  meaning: 

"Hatten  unsere  Leute  bereits  wie  die  Vandalen 
gehaust."    "Manner  erschossen." 

I  opened  the  diary  of  Private  Hassemer  of  the 
VIII  Corps,  and  in  the  entry  at  Sommepy  (in  the 
district  of  the  Marne)  for  September  3,  1914, 1  read : 

"3/9  1914.  Ein  schreckliches  Blutbad,  Dorf 
abgebrannt,  die  Franzosen  in  die  brennenden 
Hauser  geworfen,  Zivilpersonen  alles  mitverbrandt." 

("A  hideous  bloodbath   (massacre),  the  village 


176     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

totally  burned,  the  French  hurled  into  the  burning 
houses,  civilians,  everybody,  burned  together.") 

An  unsuspected  brutality  is  here  revealed.  To 
these  men  a  peasant  of  another  race  is  not  a  father 
and  husband  and  man.  He  is  as  a  dog.  He  is 
"Auslander,"  beyond  the  pale — a  thing  to  be  chased 
with  bayonets  and  burned  with  fire,  to  the  rollicking 
amusement  of  brave  soldiers.  Back  of  the  slaughter 
lies  the  basic  idea  of  a  biological  superiority  in  the 
German  people,  a  belief  that  their  duty  calls  them 
to  a  sacred  war  to  dominate  other  races,  and  create 
a  greater  Germany.  They  think  they  are  a  higher 
order  of  beings,  who  can  kill  creatures  of  a  lesser 
breed,  as  one  slays  the  lower  order  of  animals  in 
the  march  of  progress.  Other  races  have  had  dreams 
of  grandeur,  but  never  so  mad  a  dream,  so  colossal 
in  its  designs  on  world  dominion,  so  cruel  in  its 
methods  of  achieving  that  supremacy. 

Soldat  Wilhelm  Schellenberg,  of  106  Reserve  In- 
fantry of  the  XII  Reserve  Army  Corps,  gives  his 
home  as  Groitzsch  bei  Leipzig,  "am  Bahnhof,"  first 
floor,  number  8.  "Frau  Martha  Schellenberg"  is  to 
be  notified.    His  diary  is  innocent. 

I  held  in  my  hands  the  diary  of  Erich  Harlak  of 
the  II  Company,  38  Fusilier  Regiment  of  the  Sixth 
Army  Corps.  There  is  a  cut  through  the  cover  and 
pages  of  the  pamphlet — ^probably  the  stab  of  a  bayo- 
net.    Harlak  is  a  Silesian.     On  the  first  page  he 


SOME  GERMAN  WAR  DIARIES      177 

writes  in  German  "Bitte  dieses  Buch  giitigst  meinen 
Eltern  zusenden  zu  woUen."  Then  in  French  "Je 
prie  aussi  Les  Frangais  de  rendre,  s'il  vous  plait,  cet 
livre  a  mes  parents.  Addresse  Lehrer  Harlak." 
"Meinen  lieben  Eltern  gewidmet  in  Grune  bei  Lisser 
in  Posen." 

He  writes,  "I  noticed  how  our  cavalry  had  plun- 
dered here."  He  gives  an  instance  of  how  the  men 
broke  to  pieces  what  they  could  not  carry  away.  "La 
Guerre  est  la  Guerre."  He  writes  that  in  French. 
He  runs  his  table  of  values. 

1  kleiner  sous  =  4  pfennig. 
1  grosser  sous  =  8        " 
Yz  sous  =2        " 

He  has  a  vocabulary  of  French  words  in  his  own 
handwriting.  His  record  is  one  of  honest  distress  at 
the  pillage  done  by  his  comrades. 

When  the  French  soldiers  say  "C'est  la  Guerre" — 
"that's  the  way  it  is  with  war" — they  refer  to  the 
monotony  of  it,  or  the  long  duration,  or  some  curious 
ironic  contrast  between  a  peaceful  farmyard  scene 
and  a  Taube  dropping  bombs.  The  Germans  say  it 
again  and  again  in  their  diaries,  sometimes  in  the 
French  phrase,  sometimes  "Das  ist  der  Krieg,"  and 
almost  always  they  use  it  in  speaking  of  a  village 
they  have  burned  or  peasants  they  have  shot.     To 


178    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

them  that  phrase  is  an  absolution  for  any  abomina- 
tion.   It  is  the  blood-brother  of  "military  necessity." 

Carl  Zimmer,  Lieutenant  of  the  57th  Infantry  of 
the  VII  Corps,  has  a  diary  that  runs  from  August  2 
to  October  17,  1914.  On  August  29  he  tells  of 
marching  through  a  village  of  Belgium. 

"Very  many  houses  burned  whose  inhabitants  had 
shot  at  our  soldiers.    250  Civilians  shot." 

At  the  head  of  his  diary  he  writes:  "Mit  Gott 
fur  Konig  und  Vaterland."  His  record  is  in  ink. 
Bielefeld  in  Westphalia  is  his  home  town. 

Prussia  has  Prussianized  Germany.  These  diaries 
cover  the  Empire.  The  writers  are  Rhenish  Pom- 
eranian and  Brandenburgian,  Saxon  and  Bavarian. 
And  the  very  people,  such  as  the  Bavarians  and 
Saxons,  whom  we  had  hoped  were  of  a  merciful  tra- 
dition, have  bettered  the  instruction  of  the  military 
hierarchy  at  Berlin,  What  Prussia  preached  they 
have  practiced  with  the  zeal  of  a  recent  convert  eager 
to  please  his  master. 

Fahlenstein,  a  reservist  of  the  34  Fusiliers,  II 
Army  Corps,  writes  on  August  28th : 

"They  (the  French  troops)  lay  heaped  up  8  to 
10  in  a  heap,  wounded  and  dead,  always  one  on  top 
of  the  other.  Those  who  could  still  walk  were  made 
prisoners  and  brought  with  us.  The  severely 
wounded,  with  a  shot  in  the  head  or  lungs  and  so 
forth,  who  could  not  make  further  effort,  received 


■  ,■■ 


'co 

■u 

3 

& 

CO 

r/l 

<u 

"^ 

^ 

ri 

<-i-i 

^ 

o 

H 

a 

o 


o 

.13 


>  -a 


i.         ' 


J 


/il-^  -a.i -'-.      -''^i  i^-'9 .  ^^^ 


•y.r  - 


^^J^^:  '"  /,  :-  y-    ■     -y.: 


■/iy'J-);     '.■/->-:      .  ,  /■^i./i-/   ,      i^*y-J--i        ■i<f-t-y',     f-f  >t-fff}-l 


.^./L    ..^.         >.>./,</ 


n      /        • 


Photograph  of  the  German  Diary,  examined  by  the 
writer  of  this  book.  It  was  written  by  Corporal  Menge 
of  the  8th.  Company  of  the  74th.  Reserve  Infantry. 
He  reports :  "A  cure  and  his  sister  hanged,  houses 
burned." 


SOME  GERMAN  WAR  DIARIES      179 

one  more  bullet,  which  ended  their  life.  That  is 
indeed  what  we  were  ordered  to  do." 

("Die  schwer  verwundeten  .  .  .  bekamen  den- 
noch  eine  Kugel  zu,  dass  ihr  Leben  ein  Ende  hatte. 
Das  ist  uns  ja  auch  befohlen  worden.") 

His  unwillingness  to  do  the  wicked  thing  must  be 
subordinated  to  the  will  of  the  officer. 

Corporal  Menge  of  the  Eighth  Company  of  the 
74th  Reserve  Infantry,  10  Reserve  Corps,  writes  in 
his  diary  for  August  15 : 

"Wir  passieren  unter  dreimaligen  Hurra  auf 
unsern  Kaiser  u.  unter  den  Klangen  d.  Liedes 
Deutschland  iiber  alles  die  Belgische  Grenze.  Alle 
Baume  ungefallt  als  Sperre.  Pfarrer  u.  dessen 
Schwester  aufgehangt,  Hauser  abgebrannt." 

("We  passed  over  the  Belgian  border  under  a 
three  times  given  Hurrah  for  our  Kaiser,  and  under 
the  Strain  of  the  song  Deutschland  iiber  alles.  All 
the  trees  were  felled  as  barricades.  A  cure  and  his 
sister  hanged,  houses  burned.") 

This  is  a  neatly  written  diary,  which  he  wishes 
to  be  sent  to  Fraulein  F.  Winkel  of  Hanover. 

Penitential  days  are  coming  for  the  German  Em- 
pire and  for  the  German  people.  For  these  acts  of 
horror  are  the  acts  of  the  people :  man  by  man,  regi- 
ment by  regiment,  half  a  million  average  Germans, 
peasants  and  clerks,  stamped  down  through  Belgium 
and  Northern  France,  using  the  incendiary  pellet  and 


i8o    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  bayonet.  In  the  words  of  the  manifesto,  signed 
by  the  93  Wise  Men  of  Germany,  referring  to  the 
German  army,  "Sie  kennt  keine  zuchtlose  Grausam- 
keit" :  it  doesn't  know  such  a  thing  as  undisciplined 
cruelty.  No,  these  are  the  acts  of  orderly  procedure, 
planned  in  advance,  carried  out  systematically. 
Never  for  an  instant  did  the  beautiful  disciplined 
efficiency  of  the  regiment  relax  in  crushing  a  child 
and  burning  an  inhabited  house.  The  people  of 
Germany  have  bowed  their  will  to  the  implacable 
machine.    They  have  lost  their  soul  in  its  grinding. 

Private  Sebastian  Weishaupt  of  the  Third  Ba- 
varian Infantry,  First  Bavarian  Corps: 

"10.8.1914 — Parie  das  erste  Dorf  verbrannt, 
dann  gings  los;  Dorf  nach  dem  andern  in  Flam- 
men;  iiber  Feld  und  Acker  mit  Rad  bis  wir  dann  an 
Strassengraben  kamen,  wo  wir  dann  Kirschen  assen." 

("Octobre  8,  1914.  Parux  is  the  first  village 
burned,  then  things  break  loose:  1  village  after  an- 
other to  the  flames;  over  field  and  meadow  with 
cycle  we  then  come  to  the  roadside  ditches,  where 
we  ate  cherries.") 

It  is  all  in  the  day's  work :  the  burning  of  villages, 
the  murder  of  peasants,  the  eating  of  cherries.  Trav- 
elers among  savage  tribes  have  told  of  living  among 
them  for  years,  and  then  suddenly  in  a  flash  the 
inmost  soul  of  the  tribe  has  revealed  itself  in  some 
sudden  mystical  debauch  of  blood.    There  is  an  im- 


SOME  GERMAN  WAR  DIARIES      181 

mense  unbridled  cruelty  in  certain  of  these  German 
soldiers  expressing  itself  in  strange,  abnormal  ways. 
This  is  the  explanation  of  some  of  the  outrages, 
some  of  the  mutilations.  But,  for  the  most  part, 
the  cruelty  is  not  perversion,  nor  a  fierce,  jealous 
hate.  It  is  merely  the  blind,  brutal  expression  of 
imperfectly  developed  natures,  acting  under  orders. 

Gottsche,  now  commissioned  officer  of  the  85 
Infantry  Regiment,  9  Army  Corps,  writes : 

"The  captain  summoned  us  together  and  said :  'In 
the  fort  which  is  to  be  taken  there  are  apparently 
Englishmen.  I  wish  to  see  no  Englishmen  taken 
prisoner  by  the  company.'  A  universal  Bravo  of 
agreement  was  the  answer." 

("  'Ich  wiinsche  aber  Keinen  gefangenen  Eng- 
lander  bei:  der  Kompagnie  zu  sehen.'  Ein  allge- 
meines  Bravo  der  Zustimmung  war  die  Antwort.") 

Forty-three  years  of  preparedness  on  every  detail 
of  treachery  and  manslaughter,  but  not  one  hour  of 
thought  on  what  responses  organized  murder  would 
call  out  from  the  conscience  of  the  world,  nor  what 
resistances  such  cruelty  would  create.  It  is  curious 
the  way  they  set  down  their  own  infamy.  There 
is  all  the  naivete  of  a  primitive  people.  Once  a 
black  man  from  an  African  colony  came  to  where  a 
friend  of  mine  was  sitting.  He  was  happily  chop- 
ping away  with  his  knife  at  a  human  skull  which 
he  wore  suspended  from  his  neck.    He  was  as  inno- 


i82     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

cent  in  the  act  as  a  child  jabbing  a  pumpkin  with 
his  jack-knife.  So  it  has  been  with  the  Germans. 
They  burn,  plunder,  murder,  with  a  light  heart. 

There  are  noble  souls  among  them  who  look  on 
with  sad  and  wondering  eyes.  What  manner  of 
men  are  these,  they  ask  themselves  in  that  intimacy 
of  the  diary,  which  is  like  the  talk  of  a  soul  with  its 
maker.  These  men,  our  fellow-countrymen,  who 
behave  obscenely,  who  pour  out  foulness — what  a 
race  is  this  of  ours !  That  is  the  burden  of  the  self- 
communion,  which  high-minded  Germans  have  writ- 
ten down,  unconscious  that  their  sadness  would  be 
the  one  light  in  the  dark  affair,  unaware  that  only 
in  such  revolt  as  their  own  is  there  any  hope  at  all 
of  a  future  for  their  race. 

The  most  important  diary  of  all  is  that  of  an  offi- 
cer whose  name  I  have  before  me  as  I  write,  but  I 
shall  imitate  the  chivalry  of  the  French  government 
and  not  publish  that  name.  It  would  only  subject 
his  family  to  reprisal  by  the  German  military  power. 
He  belongs  to  the  46th  Reserve  Infantry  Regiment, 
5  Reserve  Corps.  He  has  a  knack  at  homely  de- 
tails. He  enters  a  deserted  house  where  the  pen- 
dulum of  the  clock  still  swings  and  ticks  and  sounds 
the  hours.  He  believes  himself  under  the  direct  pro- 
tection and  guidance  of  God.  He  sees  it  when  a 
shell  explodes,  killing  his  comrades.  He  speaks  of 
the  beauty  of  the  dead  French  officers,  as  he  sees 


SOME  GERMAN  WAR  DIARIES      183 

them  lying  in  a  railway  station.  He  is  skeptical 
about  the  lies  told  against  French  and  Belgians.  He 
realizes  that  the  officers  are  whipping  up  a  fury 
in  the  men,  so  that  they  will  obey  orders  to  kill  and 
burn.  In  his  pages  you  can  see  the  mighty  machine 
at  work,  manufacturing  the  hate  which  will  lead 
to  murder.  The  hand  on  the  lever  at  Berlin  sets 
grinding  the  wheels,  and  each  little  cog  vibrates  and 
moves  in  unison.  He  is  a  simple,  pious  man,  shocked 
by  the  wickedness  of  his  soldiers,  offended  by  the 
cruelty  of  the  officers,  hating  war,  longing  for  its 
end.  He  plans  to  publish  his  memoirs  of  the  cam- 
paign, with  photographs,  which  he  will  return  to 
France  to  make  after  the  war.  He  is  a  natural 
philosopher.  Most  of  all,  he  loves  his  quiet  smoke, 
which  keeps  him  good-humored.  He  has  written  a 
page  in  his  diary  in  praise  of  tobacco. 

"I  smoke  about  ten  cigars  a  day.  And  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  these  cigars  my  good-humor  in  these  dan- 
gers and  fatigues  would  be  much  less.  Smoking 
gives  me  to  a  degree  calm  and  content.  With  it  I 
have  something  to  occupy  my  thoughts.  It  is  neces- 
sary for  one  to  see  these  things  in  order  to  under- 
stand." 

Later  he  writes : 

"October  15,  1914.  It  had  been  planned  at  first 
that  we  should  go  into  quarters  at  Billy  (Billy  sous- 
Nangiennes),  where  the  whole  civil  population  had 


i84    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

been  already  forced  out,  and  whatever  was  movable 
had  been  taken  away  or  made  useless.  This  method 
of  conducting  war  is  directly  barbarous.  I  am  aston- 
ished how  we  can  make  any  complaint  over  the  be- 
havior of  the  Russians.  We  conduct  ourselves  in 
France  much  worse,  and  on  every  occasion  and  on 
every  small  pretext  we  have  burned  and  plundered. 
But  God  is  just  and  sees  everything.  His  mills 
grind  slowly,  but  exceedingly  small." 

("Diese  Art  kriegfiihrung  ist  direkt  barbarisch 
.  .  .  bei  jeder  Gelegenheit  wird  unter  irgend  einem 
Vorwande  gebrannt  und  gepliindert.  Aber  Gott  ist 
gerecht  und  sieht  alles :  seine  Miihlen  mahlen  lang- 
sam  aber  schrecklich  klein.") 

These  extracts  which  I  have  given  are  from  diaries 
of  which  I  have  examined  the  originals,  and  gone 
word  by  word  over  the  German,  in  the  penciling  of 
the  writer.  The  revelation  of  these  diaries  is  that 
the  Germans  have  not  yet  built  their  moral  founda- 
tions. They  have  shot  up  to  some  heights.  But  it 
is  not  a  deep-centered  structure  they  have  reared.  It 
is  scaffolding  and  fresco.  We  shall  send  them  back 
home  to  begin  again.  Sebastian  Weishaupt  and  Pri- 
vate Hassemer  and  Corporal  Menge  must  stay  at 
home.  They  must  not  come  to  other  countries  to 
try  to  rule  them,  nor  to  any  other  peoples,  to  try  to 
teach  them.  Their  hand  is  somewhat  bloody.  That 
is  my  feeling  in  reading  these  diaries  of  German 


^ 


"N 


\/'  ^'^ 


.€ 


/ 


<^- 


/.. 


/£ 


Zi-, 


"One  village  after  another  to  the  flames.  We  then 
came  to  the  roadside  ditches,  where  we  ate  cherries" — so 
writes  Sebastian  Weishaupt  of  the  3  Bavarian  Infantry. 


J  ' 

/-    ^;  ;;.  ,  ■' 

y         '1 

(■:■■/ 

I  ■ 

—" 

/'  1  ii '  ^               ■ 

( 

■'-.  ..-  "T-- 

'  -    -'/tf-^l^ 

,            i 

i  ■ 

1 
,1 

i  :.hj'~r' 

-■  -f  y 

■  • 

■, '. '  '.   ^'^'^yf^'^^;'..  - 

i 

■  ;•  i 

J 

^^^.'  --.:    .-^^ 

i 

1 

! 

" 

■   vt 

-r 

1 

r 

'''■'.-      i- 

-  ■  ■  ■   i 

,-•■■"■■ 

^ 

'■spir-     - 

■■' 

■'   /A^:k..    jV"-    --  -, 

, .  -. ,-  "^^ 

^') 

/ 

■It- 

"We  have  burned  and  plundered.  But  God  is  just 
and  sees  everything.  His  mills  grind  slowly,  but  ex- 
ceeding small."- — The  diary  of  an  officer  of  the  46  Re- 
serve Infantry  Regiment. 


SOME  GERMAN  WAR  DIARIES      185 

soldiers — poor  lost  children  of  the  human  race,  back 
in  the  twilight  of  time,  so  far  to  climb  before  you 
will  reach  civilization.  We  must  be  very  patient 
with  you  through  the  long  years  it  will  take  to  cast 
away  the  slime  and  winnow  out  the  simple  goodness, 
which  is  also  there. 


Ill 


MORE    DIARIES 


IN  former  European  wars  foul  practices  were 
committed  by  individual  members  of  armies. 
But  the  total  army  in  each  country  was  a  small 
hired  band  of  men,  representing  only  the  fractional 
part  of  one  per  cent  of  the  population.  It  was  in 
no  way  representative  of  the  mind  of  the  people. 
Of  the  present  German  Army,  Professor  Dr.  Max 
Planck,  of  the  University  of  Berlin,  a  distinguished 
physicist,  has  recently  written: 

"The  German  Army  is  nothing  but  the  German 
people  in  arms,  and  the  scholars  and  artists  are,  like 
all  other  classes,  inseparably  bound  up  with  it." 

We  must  regard  the  acts  of  the  German  Army  as 
the  acts  of  the  people.  We  cannot  dodge  the  prob- 
lem of  their  misbehavior  by  saying  they  have  not 
committed  atrocities.  We  have  the  signed  state- 
ments of  a  thousand  German  diaries  that  they  have 
practiced  frightfulness  village  by  village  through 
Belgium  and  Northern  France.  We  cannot  say  it 
was  a  handful  of  drunken,  undisciplined  soldiers 

1 86 


MORE  DIARIES  187 

who  did  these  things.  It  was  "the  German  people 
in  arms."  It  was  an  army  that  "knows  no  such  thing 
as  undisciplined  cruelty."  It  was  a  nation  of  people 
that  burned  and  murdered,  acting  under  orders. 
Now,  we  have  arrived  at  the  heart  of  the  problem. 
Why  did  they  commit  these  horrors  ? 

Irritated  by  an  unexpectedly  firm  resistance  from 
the  Belgian  and  French  Armies,  fed  on  lies  spread 
by  German  officers  concerning  the  cruelty  of  French 
and  Belgians,  they  obeyed  the  commands  to  burn 
houses  and  shoot  civilians. 

These  commands  released  a  primitive  quality  of 
brutality. 

On  August  25th,  1914,  Reservist  Heinrich  Bis- 
singer,  of  the  town  of  Ingolstadt,  of  the  Second  Com- 
pany, of  the  First  Bavarian  Pioneers,  writes  of  the 
village  of  Orchies: 

"A  woman  was  shot  because  she  did  not  stop  at 
the  word  Halt,  but  kept  running  away.  Thereupon 
we  burn  the  whole  place." 

("Samtliche  Civilpersonen  werden  verhaftet. 
Eine  Frau  wurde  vershossen,  weil  sie  auf  Halt  Rufen 
nicht  hielt,  sondern  ausreissen  wollte.  Hierauf  Ver- 
brennen  der  ganzen  Ortschaft.") 

One  wonders  if  Heinrich  Bissinger  would  wish 
the  treatment  he  and  his  comrades  accorded  to 
Orchies,  to  be  applied  to  his  own  home  town  of  In- 
golstadt.    If  some  German  peasant  woman  in  In- 


i88    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

golstadt  failed  to  understand  a  word  in  a  foreign 
tongue,  and  were  killed,  and  then  if  Ingolstadt  were 
burned,  would  Heinrich  Bissinger  feel  that  "military 
necessity"  exonerated  the  soldiers  that  performed 
the  deed? 

Private  Philipp,  from  Kamenz,  Saxony,  of  the 
First  Company,  of  the  first  Battalion  of  the  178th 
Regiment,  writes :  "Kriegs  Tagebuch-Soldat  Philipp, 
1  Kompanie  (Sachsen),"  at  the  head  of  his  diary. 
On  August  23  he  writes  of  a  village  that  had  been 
burned : 

"A  spectacle  terrible  and  yet  beautiful.  Directly 
at  the  entrance  lay  about  50  dead  inhabitants  who 
had  been  shot,  because  they  had  traitorously  fired  on 
our  troops.  In  the  course  of  the  night  many  more 
were  shot,  so  that  we  could  count  over  200.  Women 
and  children,  lamp  in  hand,  had  to  watch  the  hor- 
rible spectacle.  Then  in  the  middle  of  the  corpses 
we  ate  our  rice;  since  morning  we  had  eaten  noth- 
ing. By  search  through  the  houses  we  found  much 
wine  and  liquor,  but  nothing  to  eat." 

("Im  Laufe  der  Nacht  wurden  noch  viele  erschos- 
sen,  sodass  wir  fiber  200  zahlen  konnten.  Frauen 
und  Kinder,  die  Lampe  in  der  Hand,  mussten  dem 
entsetzlichen  Schauspiele  zusehen.  Wir  assen  dann 
inmitten  der  Leichen  unsem  Reis,  seit  Morgen  hat- 
ten  wir  nichts  gegessen.") 

German  soldiers  obey  these  orders  because  their 


MORE  DIARIES  189 

military  training  and  their  general  education  have 
made  them  docile.  They  have  never  learned  to  ex- 
ercise independent  individual  moral  judgment  on 
acts  ordered  by  the  state.  The  state  to  them  is  an 
organism  functioning  in  regions  that  lie  outside  the 
intellectual  and  moral  life  of  the  individual.  In 
every  German  there  are  separate  water-tight  com- 
partments: the  one  for  the  life  he  leads  as  a  hus- 
band and  father,  the  other  for  the  acts  he  must  com- 
mit as  a  citizen  of  the  Empire  and  as  a  soldier  of 
the  Army.  In  his  home  life  he  makes  choices.  In 
his  public  life  he  has  no  choice.  He  must  obey  with- 
out compunctions.  So  he  lays  aside  his  conscience. 
In  the  moral  realm  the  German  is  a  child,  which 
means  that  he  is  by  turns  cruel,  sentimental,  forget- 
ful of  the  evil  he  has  done  the  moment  before, 
happy  in  the  present  moment,  eating  enormously, 
pleased  with  little  things,  crying  over  a  letter  from 
home,  weary  of  the  war,  with  sore  feet  and  a  rebel- 
lious stomach,  a  heavy  pack,  and  no  cigars.  I  am 
basing  every  statement  I  make  on  the  statements 
written  by  German  soldiers.  We  do  not  have  to 
guess  at  German  psychology.  They  have  ripped 
open  their  subconsciousness. 

The  lieutenant  of  the  5th  Battalion  of  reserves  of 
the  Prussian  Guard  writes  on  August  24  at  Cirey : 

"In   the  night  unbelievable   things   have   taken 


igo    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

place.  Warehouses  plundered,  money  stolen,  viola- 
tions simply  hair-raising." 

("In  der  Nacht  sind  unglaubliche  Sachen  passiert. 
Laden  ausgepliindert.  Geld  gestohlen,  Vergewaltig- 
ungen,  Einfach  haarstraubend,") 

This  diary  of  the  lieutenant's  has  a  black  cover,  a 
little  pocket  for  papers,  a  holder  for  the  pencil.  It 
is  written  partly  in  black  pencil  and  partly  in  pur- 
ple. Thirty-two  pages  are  written,  118  are  blank. 
It  covers  a  space  of  time  from  August  1  to  Septem- 
ber 4,  1914. 

Mrs.  Wharton  has  brought  to  my  attention  the 
chronicle  of  Salimbene,  a  Franciscan  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  wherein  similar  light-hearted  crimes 
are  recorded. 

"On  one  day  he  (Ezzelino)  caused  11,000  men 
of  Padua  to  be  burnt  in  the  field  of  Saint  George; 
and  when  fire  had  been  set  to  the  house  in  which 
they  were  being  burnt,  he  jousted  as  if  in  sport 
around  them  with  his  knights. 

"The  villagers  dwelt  apart,  nor  were  there  any 
that  resisted  their  enemies  or  opened  the  mouth  or 
made  the  least  noise.  And  that  night  they  (the 
soldiers)  burned  53  houses  in  the  village." 

The  orders  given  by  the  German  commanding 
general  to  his  officers,  far  from  recommending  pru- 
dence and  humanity,  impose  the  obligation  of  hold- 
ing the  total  civil  population  collectively  respon- 


MORE  DIARIES  191 

sible  for  the  smallest  individual  infractions,  and  of 
acting  against  every  tentative  infringement  with 
pitiless  severity.  These  officers  are  as  specialized  a 
class  as  New  York  gunmen  or  Paris  apaches.  Their 
career  lies  in  anti-social  conduct.  "This  wild  upper- 
class  of  the  young  German  imperialistic  idea"  are 
implacable  destroyers.  Their  promotion  is  depend- 
ent on  the  extent  of  their  cruelties, 

I  have  seen  an  original  copy  of  the  order  for  the 
day  (Korps-Tagesbefehl)  issued  on  August  12, 
1914,  by  General  von  Fabeck,  commanding  the  13th 
Army  Corps.    He  says : 

"Lieutenant  Haag  of  the  19th  Regiment  of 
Uhlans,  acting  as  chief  of  patrol,  has  proceeded  en- 
ergetically against  the  rioting  inhabitants,  and  as 
agreed  has  employed  arms.  I  express  to  him  my 
recognition  for  his  energy  and  his  decision." 

("Ich  spreche  ihm  fiir  seinen  Schneid  und  seine 
Umsicht  meine  Anerkennung  aus.") 

What  that  gives  to  Lieutenant  Haag  is  the  power 
of  life  and  death  over  non-combatants,  with  praise 
for  him  if  he  deals  out  death. 

Let  us  hear  General  von  Fabeck  speak  again. 
Here  are  his  instructions  for  his  troops  on  August 
15,  1914  (I  have  held  the  original  in  my  hands)  : 

"As  soon  as  the  territory  is  entered,  the  inhabitants 
are  to  be  held  responsible  for  maintaining  the  lines 
of  communication.    For  that  purpose  the  commander 


192     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  the  advance  guard  will  arrange  a  strong  patrol  of 
campaign  gendarmes  (Feldgendarmerie-Patrouille) 
to  be  used  for  the  interior  of  the  locality  held  by 
our  troops.  Against  every  inhabitant  who  tries  to 
do  us  a  damage,  or  who  does  us  a  damage,  it  is  nec- 
essary to  act  with  pitiless  severity." 

"Mit  riicksichtsloser  Strenge." 

This  order  is  on  long  sheets  of  the  nature  of  our 
foolscap.    It  is  written  in  violet  ink. 

The  copy  reads: 

gez.  V.  Fabeck 

Fiir  die  Richtigkeit  der  Abschrift 

Baessler 

Oberlt.  und  Brig-Adjutant. 

Baessler  is  the  aide-de-camp. 

Two  violations  of  the  rights  of  non-combatants 
are  in  that  order.  The  requisitioning  of  inhabitants 
on  military  work  where  they  are  exposed  to  the  fire 
of  their  own  nation;  pitiless  severity  applied  to 
every  non-combatant  on  the  least  suspicion  of  a 
hostile  act. 

Actually  the  state  which  the  simple  soldiers  obey 
so  utterly  is  an  inner  clique  of  landed  proprietors, 
captains  of  industry,  and  officers  of  the  army — men 
of  ruthless  purpose  and  vast  ambitions.    The  sixty- 


MORE  DIARIES  193 

five  millions  of  docile  peasants,  clerks,  artizans  and 
petty  officials  are  tools  for  this  inner  clique. 

"The  theories  of  the  German  philosophers  and 
public  men  are  of  one  piece  with  the  collective  acts 
of  the  German  soldiers.  The  pages  of  the  Pan- 
German  writers  are  prophetic.  They  are  not  so  much 
the  precursors  as  the  results,  the  echoes  of  a  some- 
thing impersonal  that  is  vaster  than  their  own  voice. 
Here  we  have  acted  out  the  cult  of  force,  creator 
of  Right,  practiced  since  its  dim  origins  by  Prussia, 
defended  philosophically  by  Lasson,  scientifically  by 
Haeckel  and  Ostwald,  politically  by  Treitschke,  and 
in  a  military  way  by  General  von  Bemhardi." 

The  modem  Germany  is  the  victim  of  an  obsession. 
Under  its  sentimental  domestic  life,  its  placid  beer- 
garden  recreation,  its  methodical  activities,  its  rev- 
eries, its  emotional  laxity  fed  on  music,  it  was  gen- 
erating destructive  forces.  Year  by  year  it  was 
thinking  the  thoughts,  inculcated  by  its  famous 
teachers,  until  those  ideas,  pushed  deep  down  into 
the  subconscious,  became  an  overmastering  desire,  a 
dream  of  world-grandeur.  For  once  an  idea  pene- 
trates through  to  the  subconsciousness,  it  becomes 
touched  with  emotional  life,  later  to  leap  back  into 
the  light  of  day  in  uncontrolled  action. 

I  can  produce  one  of  the  original  bills  posted  on 
the  walls  of  Liege  by  General  von  Bulow.  Here  is 
the  way  it  reads : 


194    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Ordre. 
A  la  population  Liegeoise. 

La  population  d'Andenne,  apres  avoir  temoigne 
des  intentions  pacifiques  a  I'egard  de  nos  troupes, 
les  a  attaquees  de  la  fagon  la  plus  traitresse.  Avec 
mon  autorisation,  le  General  qui  commandait  ces 
troupes  a  mis  la  ville  en  cendres  et  a  fait  fusilier  i  lo 
personnes.  Je  porte  ce  fait  a  la  connaissance  de  la 
ville  de  Liege,  pour  que  ses  habitants  sachent  a  quel 
sort  ils  peuvent  s'attendre  s'ils  prennent  une  attitude 
semblable. 

Liege,  le  22  Aout,  1914. 

General  von  Bulow. 

("The  inhabitants  of  the  town  of  Andenne,  after 
having  testified  to  their  peaceful  intentions  in  regard 
to  our  troops,  attacked  them  in  a  fashion  the  most 
treacherous.  By  my  authorization,  the  General  who 
commanded  the  troops  has  burned  the  town  to  ashes 
and  has  shot  1 10  people.  I  bring  this  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  town  of  Liege,  in  order  that  the  inhab- 
itants may  know  what  fate  they  invite  if  they  take  a 
like  attitude.") 

It  is  only  in  victorious  conquest  that  the  German 
is  unendurable.  When  he  was  trounced  at  the  Battle 
of  the  Marne,  he  ceased  his  wholesale  burnings  and 
massacres  throughout  that  district,  and  continued  his 
campaign  of  frightfulness  only  in  those  sections  of 


MORE  DIARIES  195 

Belgium  around  Antwerp  where  he  was  still  conquer- 
ing new  territory.  His  dream  of  world  conquest 
will  die  in  a  day,  when  the  day  comes  that  sends 
him  home.  In  defeat,  he  is  simple,  kindly,  sur- 
prised at  humane  treatment.  He  ceases  to  be  a 
superman  at  the  touch  of  failure.  All  his  blown-up 
grandeur  collapses,  •  and  he  shrinks  to  his  true 
stature. 

This  return  to  wholesomeness  is  dependent  on  two 
things:  a  thorough  defeat  in  this  war,  so  that  the 
German  people  will  see  that  a  machine  fails  when 
it  seeks  to  crush  the  human  spirit,  and  an  internal 
revolution  in  the  conception  of  individual  duty  to 
the  state,  so  that  they  will  regain  the  virtues  of 
common  humanity.  The  water-tight  compartments, 
which  they  have  built  up  between  the  inner  voice 
of  conscience  in  the  individual  life  and  the  outer 
compulsion  of  the  state,  must  be  broken  through. 


IV 


THE    BOOMERANG 


ONE  of  the  best  jokes  of  the  war  has  been 
put  over  on  the  Germans  by  themselves. 
Here  I  quote  from  a  German  diary  of  which 
I  have  seen  the  original.  It  is  written  by  a  sub- 
officer  of  the  Landwehr,  of  the  46th  Reserve  Regi- 
ment, the  9th  Company,  recruited  from  the  province 
of  Posen.  He  and  his  men  are  on  the  march,  and 
the  date  is  August  2 1 .    He  writes : 

"We  are  infonned  of  things  to  make  us  shudder 
concerning  the  wickedness  of  the  French,  as,  for 
instance,  that  our  wounded,  lying  on  the  ground, 
have  their  eyes  put  out,  their  ears  and  noses  cut. 
We  are  told  that  we  ought  to  behave  without  any 
limits.  I  have  the  impression  that  all  this  is  told  us 
for  the  sole  purpose  that  no  one  shall  stay  behind  or 
take  the  French  side;  our  men  also  are  of  the  same 
opinion." 

On  August  23  he  writes : 

"I  learn  from  different  quarters  that  the  French 
maltreat  our  prisoners;  a  woman  has  put  out  the 
eyes  of  an  Uhlan." 

196 


THE  BOOMERANG  197 

By  August  24  all  this  begins  to  have  its  effect  on 
the  imperfectly  developed  natures  of  his  comrades, 
and  he  writes: 

"I  find  among  our  troops  a  great  excitability 
against  the  French." 

There  we  can  see  the  machinery  of  hate  in  full 
operation.  The  officers  state  the  lies  to  the  soldiers. 
They  travel  fast  by  rumor.  The  primitive,  emo- 
tional men  respond  with  ever-increasing  excitement 
till  they  readily  carry  out  murder. 

Let  us  see  how  all  this  is  working  back  home  in 
the  Fatherland.  I  have  seen  the  photographic  re- 
production of  a  letter  written  by  a  German  woman 
to  her  husband  (from  whose  body  it  was  taken),  in 
which  she  tells  him  not  to  spare  the  French  dogs 
("Hunden"),  neither  the  soldiers  nor  the  women. 
She  goes  on  to  give  her  reason.  The  French,  she 
says,  men  and  women,  are  cruel  to  German  prisoners. 
The  story  had  reached  her. 

The  German  Chancellor  in  September,  1914, 
stated  in  an  interview  for  the  United  States: 

"Your  fellow  countrymen  arc  told  that  German 
troops  have  burned  Belgian  villages  and  towns,  but 
you  are  not  told  that  young  Belgian  girls  have  put 
out  the  eyes  of  the  defenseless  wounded  on  the  field 
of  battle.  Belgian  women  have  cut  the  throats  of 
our  soldiers  as  they  slept,  men  to  whom  they  had 
given  hospitality." 


198    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  final  consecration  of  the  rumor  was  given  by 
the  Kaiser  himself.  On  September  8,  1914,  he  sent 
a  cable  to  President  Wilson,  in  which  he  repeated 
these  allegations  against  the  Belgian  people  and 
clergy.  Of  course,  he  knew  better,  just  as  his  Chan- 
cellor and  General  Staff  and  his  officers  knew  better. 
It  was  all  part  of  the  play  to  charge  the  enemy  with 
things  akin  to  what  the  Germans  themselves  were 
doing.  That  makes  it  an  open  question,  with  "much 
to  be  said  on  both  sides."  That  creates  neutrality 
on  the  part  of  non-investigating  nations,  like  the 
United  States. 

But  what  he  and  his  military  clique  failed  to  see 
was  that  they  had  discharged  a  boomerang.  The 
comeback  was  swift.  The  German  Protestants  be- 
gan to  "agitate"  against  the  German  Roman  Cath- 
olics. The  old  religious  hates  revived;  a  new  relig- 
ious war  was  on.  Now,  this  was  the  last  thing 
desired  by  the  military  power.  An  internal  strife 
would  weaken  war-making  power  abroad.  Here  was 
Germany  filled  with  lies  told  by  the  military  clique. 
Those  lies  were  creating  internal  dissension.  So  the 
same  military  clique  had  to  go  to  work  and  deny  the 
very  lies  they  had  manufactured.  They  did  not  deny 
them  out  of  any  large  love  for  the  Belgian  and 
French  people.  They  denied  them  because  of  the 
anti-Catholic  feeling  inside  Germany  which  the  lies 
had  stirred  up.    German  official  inquiries  have  estab- 


THE  BOOMERANG  199 

lished  the  falsity  of  the  atrocity  charges  leveled 
against  the  Belgians. 

A  German  priest,  R.  P.  Bernhard  Duhr,  S.  J., 
published  a  pamphlet-book,  "Der  Liigengeist  im 
Volkekrieg.  Kriegsmarchen  gesammelt  von  Bern- 
hard  Duhr,  S.  J.,"  (Miinchen-Regensburg,  Ver- 
lagsanstat,  Vorm.  G.  J.  Manz,  Buch  und  Kunst- 
druckei,  1915).  Its  title  means  "The  spirit  of  false- 
hood in  a  people's  war.  Legends  that  spring  up  in 
wartime."  His  book  was  written  as  a  defense  of 
Roman  Catholic  interests  and  for  the  sake  of  the 
internal  peace  of  his  own  country.  This  book  I  have 
seen.  It  is  a  small  pamphlet  of  72  pages,  with  a  red 
cover.  The  widest  circulation  through  the  German 
Empire  was  given  to  this  proof  of  the  falsity  of  the 
charges  laid  to  the  Allies.  Powerful  newspapers  pub- 
lished the  denials  and  ceased  to  publish  the  slanders. 
Generals  issued  orders  that  persons  propagating  the 
calumnies,  whether  orally,  by  picture  or  in  writing, 
would  be  followed  up  without  pity.  So  died  the 
legend  of  atrocities  by  Belgians.  The  mighty  power 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  had  stretched  out  its 
arm  and  touched  the  Kaiser  and  his  war  lords  to 
silence. 

The  charges  are  treachery,  incitement  to  murder 
and  battle,  traitorous  attacks,  the  hiding  of  machine 
guns  in  church  towers,  the  murder,  poisoning  and 
mutilation  of  the  wounded.    The  story  ran  that  the 


200    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

civil  population,  incited  by  the  clergy,  entered  ac- 
tively into  hostilities,  attacking  troops,  signaling  to 
the  Allies  the  positions  occupied  by  the  Germans. 
The  favorite  and  most  popular  allegation  was  that 
women,  old  people  and  children  committed  atrocities 
on  wounded  Germans,  putting  out  their  eyes,  cut- 
ting off  their  fingers,  ears  and  noses ;  and  that  priests 
urged  them  on  to  do  these  things  and  played  an 
active  part  in  perpetrating  the  crimes.  Putting  out 
the  eyes  became  the  prize  story  of  all  the  collection. 

The  German  priest,  Duhr,  runs  down  each  lie  to 
its  source,  and  then  prints  the  official  denial.  Thus, 
a  soldier  of  the  Landwehr  sends  the  story  to  Ober- 
hausen  (in  the  Rhine  provinces) : 

"At  Libramont  the  Catholic  priest  and  the  burgo- 
master, after  a  sermon,  have  distributed  bullets  to 
the  civil  population,  with  which  the  inhabitants  fire 
on  German  soldiers.  A  boy  of  thirteen  years  has 
put  out  the  eyes  of  a  wounded  officer,  and  women, 
forty  to  fifty  years  old,  have  mutilated  our  wounded 
soldiers.  The  women,  the  priest  and  the  burgo- 
master have  been  all  together  executed  at  Treves. 
The  boy  has  been  condemned  to  a  long  term  in  the 
home  of  correction." 

The  German  commander  of  the  garrison  at  Treves 
writes : 

"Five  Belgian  francs-tireurs  who  had  been  con- 
demned to  death  by  the  court  martial  were  shot  at 


THE  BOOMERANG  201 

Treves.  A  sixth  Belgian,  still  rather  young,  has  been 
condemned  to  imprisonment  for  many  years.  Among 
the  condemned  there  were  neither  women,  nor  priests 
nor  burgomaster." 

This  communication  is  signed  by  Colonel  Wey- 
rach. 

Postcards  representing  Belgian  francs-tireurs 
were  placed  on  sale  at  Cassel.  The  commander  of 
the  district  writes : 

"The  commanding  general  of  the  XI  Army  Corps 
at  Cassel  has  confiscated  the  cards." 

Wagner  Bauer,  of  the  Prussian  Ministry  of  War, 
writes  of  another  tale: 

"The  story  of  the  priest  and  the  boy  spreads  as  a 
rumor  among  troops  on  the  march." 

The  Herner  Zeitung^  an  official  organ,  in  its  issue 
of  September  9,  printed  the  following :  "Among  the 
French  prisoners  was  a  Belgian  priest  who  had  col- 
lected his  parishioners  in  the  church  to  fire  from 
hiding  on  the  German  soldiers.  Shame  that  German 
soil  should  be  defiled  by  such  trash !  And  to  think 
that  a  nation  which  shields  rascals  of  that  sort  dares 
to  invoke  the  law  of  humanity  I" 

Frhr.  von  Bissing,  commanding  general  of  the  VII 
Army  Corps,  writes : 

"The  story  of  a  Belgian  priest,  reported  by  the 
Herner  Zeitung  does  not  answer  at  any  point  to  the 
truth,  as  it  has  since  been  established.     The  facts 


202    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

have  been  communicated  to  the  Herner  Zeitung  con- 
cerning their  article." 

The  Hessische  Zeitung  prints  the  following  under 
title  of  "Letters  from  the  Front  by  a  Hessian  In- 
structor" : 

"The  door  of  the  church  opens  suddenly  and  the 
priest  rushes  out  at  the  head  of  a  gang  of  rascals 
armed  with  revolvers." 

The  Prussian  Ministry  of  War  replies: 

"The  inquiry  does  not  furnish  proof  in  support  of 
the  alleged  acts." 

The  Berliner  Tageblatt^  for  September  lo,  has  a 
lively  story : 

"It  was  the  cure  who  had  organized  the  resistance 
of  the  people,  who  had  them  enter  the  church,  and 
who  had  planned  the  conspiracy  against  our  troops." 

The  Prussian  Minister  of  War  makes  answer: 
"The  cure  did  not  organize  the  resistance  of  inhab- 
itants; he  did  not  have  them  enter  the  church,  and 
he  had  not  planned  the  conspiracy  against  our 
troops." 

The  dashing  German  war  correspondent,  Paul 
Schweder,  writes  in  Landesbote  an  article,  "Under 
the  Shrapnel  in  Front  of  Verdun."  He  says  that 
he  saw : 

"A  convoy  of  francs-tireurs,  at  their  head  a  priest 
with  his  hands  bound." 

The  German  investigator  pauses  to  wonder  why 


THE  BOOMERANG  203 

every  prisoner  and  every  suspect  is  a  franc-tireur, 
and  then  he  goes  on  with  his  inquiry,  which  results 
in  a  statement  from  the  Prussian  War  Minister : 

"Deiber  (the  priest)  had  nothing  charged  against 
him,  was  set  at  liberty,  and,  at  his  own  request,  has 
been  authorized  to  live  at  Oberhaslach." 

The  Frankfurter  Zeitung^  September  8,  has  a 
spirited  account  of  a  combat  with  francs-tireurs  in 
Andenne,  written  by  Dr.  Alex  Berg,  of  Frankfort : 

"The  cure  went  through  the  village  with  a  bell, 
to  give  the  signal  for  the  fight.  The  battle  began 
immediately  after,  very  hotly." 

The  military  authority  of  Andenne,  Lieutenant 
Colonel  V.  Eulwege : 

"My  own  investigation,  very  carefully  made, 
shows  no  proof  that  the  cure  excited  the  people  to  a 
street  fight.  Every  one  at  Andenne  gives  a  different 
account  from  that,  to  the  effect  that  most  of  the 
people  have  seen  hardly  anything  of  the  battle,  so- 
called,  because  they  had  hidden  themselves  from 
fear  in  the  cellars." 

Finally,  the  War  Ministry  and  the  press  wearied 
of  individual  denials,  and  one  great  blanket  denial 
was  issued.  Der  Volkerkrieg,  which  is  a  compre- 
hensive chronicle  of  review  of  the  war,  states: 

"It  is  impossible  to  present  any  solid  proof  of 
the  allegation,  made  by  so  many  letters  from  the 
front,  to  the  effect  that  the  Belgian  priests  took  part 


204    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

in  the  war  of  francs-tireurs.  Letters  of  that  kind 
which  we  have  heretofore  reproduced  in  our  record 
— for  example,  the  recital  of  events  at  Louvain  and 
Andenne — are  left  out  of  the  new  editions." 

Der  Fels,  Organ  der  Central-Auskunftstelle  der 
katholischen  Presse,  states: 

"The  serious  accusations  which  I  have  listed  are 
not  only  inaccurate  in  parts  and  grossly  exaggerated, 
but  they  are  invented  in  every  detail,  and  are  at 
every  point  false." 

And,  again,  it  says: 

"All  the  instances,  known  up  to  the  present  and 
capable  of  being  cleared  up,  dealing  with  the  alleged 
cruelties  of  Catholic  priests  in  the  war,  have  been 
found  without  exception  false  or  fabrications 
through  and  through." 

Turning  to  the  "mutilations,"  we  have  the  Nack 
Feier abend  publishing  a  "letter  from  the  front" 
which  tells  of  a  house  of  German  wounded  being 
burned  by  the  French  inhabitants.  Asked  for  the 
name  of  the  place  and  the  specific  facts,  the  editor 
replied  that  "you  are  not  the  forum  where  it  is  my 
duty  to  justify  myself.  Your  proceeding  in  the 
midst  of  war  of  representing  the  German  soldiers 
who  fight  and  die  as  liars,  in  order  to  save  your  own 
skin,  I  rebuke  in  the  most  emphatic  way." 

But  the  Minister  of  War  got  further  with  the 
picturesque  editor,  and  writes : 


THE  BOOMERANG  205 

"The  editorial  department  of  the  Nach  Feierabend 
states  that  it  hasn't  any  longer  in  its  possession  the 
letter  in  question." 

Now  we  come  to  the  most  famous  of  all  the 
stories. 

"At  a  military  hospital  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  an  en- 
tire ward  was  filled  with  wounded,  who  had  had 
their  eyes  put  out  in  Belgium." 

Dr.  Kaufmann,  an  ecclesiastic  of  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
writes : 

"\  send  you  the  testimony  of  the  head  doctor  of  a 
military  hospital  here,  a  celebrated  oculist  whom  I 
consulted  just  because  he  is  an  oculist.  He  writes 
me: 

"  Tn  no  hospital  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  is  there  any 
ward  of  wounded  with  their  eyes  put  out.  To  my 
knowledge  absolutely  nothing  of  the  sort  has  been 
verified  at  Aix-la-Chapelle.'  " 

The  Kolnische  Volkzeitung,  October  28,  gives  the 
testimony  of  Dr.  Viilles,  of  the  hospital  in  Stephan- 
strasse,  Aix-la-Chapelle,  in  reference  to  the  "Ward 
of  Dead  Men,"  where  "twenty-eight  soldiers  lay 
with  eyes  put  out."  The  men  laughed  heartily 
when  they  were  asked  if  they  had  had  their  eyes 
put  out. 

"If  you  wish  to  publish  what  you  have  seen,"  said 
Dr.  Viillers,  "you  will  be  able  to  say  that  my  col- 


2o6    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

league,  Dr.  Thier,  as  well  as  myself,  have  never 
treated  a  single  soldier  who  had  his  eyes  put  out." 

Professor  Kuhnt,  of  the  clinic  for  diseases  of  the 
eye  at  Bonn,  writes : 

"I  have  seen  many  who  have  lost  their  sight  be- 
cause of  rifle  bullets  or  shell  fire.  The  story  is  a 
fable." 

The  Weser-Zeitung  has  a  moving  story  of  a  hos- 
pital at  Potsdam  for  soldiers  wounded  by  the  francs- 
tireurs,  where  lie  officers  with  their  eyes  put  out. 
"Young  Belgian  girls,  of  from  fourteen  to  fifteen 
years  of  age,  at  the  incitement  of  Catholic  priests, 
have  committed  the  crimes." 

The  commander  at  Potsdam  writes : 

"There  is  no  special  hospital  here  for  soldiers 
wounded  by  the  francs-tireurs.  There  are  no  officers 
here  with  eyes  put  out.  The  commander  has  taken 
measures  to  correct  the  article  under  dispute,  and 
also  in  other  publications." 

So  perish  the  lies  used  against  Belgium.  Lies 
manufactured  by  the  General  Staff  and  taught  to 
their  officers,  to  be  used  among  the  soldiers,  in  order 
to  whip  them  to  hate,  because  in  that  hate  they 
would  carry  out  the  cold  cruelty  of  those  officers 
and  of  that  General  Staff.  Lies  put  out  in  order  to 
blind  the  eyes  of  neutrals,  like  the  government  at 
Washington,  to  the  pillage,  the  burning  and  the  mur- 
der which  the  German  army  was  perpetrating  as  it 


THE  BOOMERANG  207 

marched  through  Belgium  and  Lorraine.  Lies  that 
later  had  to  be  officially  denied  by  the  same  military 
power  that  had  manufactured  them,  because  those 
lies  were  stirring  up  civil  strife  at  home,  and  be- 
cause the  Roman  Catholic  Germans  investigated  the 
sources  and  silenced  the  liars. 

The  Kaiser  cabled  to  our  country: 

"The  cruelties  committed  in  this  guerilla  war- 
fare by  women,  children  and  priests  on  wounded 
soldiers,  members  of  the  medical  staff  and  ambu- 
lance workers  have  been  such  that  my  generals  have 
at  last  been  obliged  to  resort  to  the  most  rigorous 
measures.  My  heart  bleeds  to  see  that  such  measures 
have  been  made  necessary  and  to  think  of  the  count- 
less innocents  who  have  lost  their  life  and  property 
because  of  the  barbarous  conduct  of  those  criminals." 

Now  that  he  knows  that  those  stories  are  lies  he 
must  feel  sorrier  yet  that  his  army  killed  those  count- 
less innocents  and  burned  those  peasant  homes. 


I 


SECTION  IV 
THE    PEASANTS 


1 


THE  LOST  VILLAGES 

I  WAS  Standing  in  what  was  once  the  pleasant 
village  of  Sommeilles.  It  has  been  burned 
house  by  house,  and  only  the  crumbled  rock  was 
left  in  piles  along  the  roadside.  I  looked  at  the 
church  tower.  On  a  September  morning,  at  fourteen 
minutes  of  nine  o'clock,  an  incendiary  shell  had  cut 
through  the  steeple  of  the  church,  disemboweled  the 
great  clock,  and  set  the  roof  blazing.  There,  fac- 
ing the  cross-roads,  the  hands  of  the  clock  once  so 
busy  with  their  time-keeping,  are  frozen.  For 
twenty-three  months,  they  have  registered  the  instant 
of  their  own  stoppage.  On  the  minute  hand,  which 
holds  a  line  parallel  with  that  of  the  earth,  a  linnet 
has  built  its  nest  of  straw.  The  hour-hand,  out- 
paced by  its  companion  at  the  moment  of  arrest, 
was  marking  time  at  a  slant  too  perilous  for  the 
home  of  little  birds.  Together,  the  hands  had  trav- 
eled steadily  through  the  hours  which  make  the  years 
for  almost  a  century.  High  over  the  village  street, 
they  had  sent  the  plowman  to  his  field,  and  the  girl 

211 


212     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  her  milking.  Children,  late  from  their  play,  had 
scrambled  home  to  supper,  frightened  by  that  lofty 
record  of  their  guilt.  And  how  many  lovers,  stray- 
ing back  from  the  deep,  protecting  meadows,  have 
quickened  their  step,  when  the  revealing  moon 
lighted  that  face.  Now  it  marks  only  cessation.  It 
tells  of  the  time  when  a  village  ceased  to  live.  Some- 
thing came  down  out  of  the  distance,  and  destroyed 
the  activities  of  generations — something  that  made 
an  end  of  play  and  love.  Only  the  life  of  the  linnet 
goes  on  as  if  the  world  was  still  untroubled.  North- 
ern France  is  held  in  that  cessation.  Suddenly  death 
came,  and  touched  seven  hundred  villages.  Nor  can 
there  ever  be  a  renewal  of  the  old  charm.  The  art 
of  the  builders  is  gone,  and  the  old  sense  of  security 
in  a  quiet,  continuing  world. 

I  have  been  spending  the  recent  days  with  these 
peasants  in  the  ruins  of  their  shattered  world.  Lit- 
tle wooden  baraquements  are  springing  up,  as  neat 
and  bare  as  the  bungalows  of  summer  visitors  on 
the  shore  of  a  Maine  lake.  Brisk  brick  houses  and 
stores  lift  out  of  crumpled  rock  with  the  rawness  of  a 
mining  camp.  It  is  all  very  brave  and  spirited. 
But  it  reminded  me  of  the  new  wooden  legs,  with 
shining  leather  supports,  and  bright  metal  joints, 
which  maimed  soldiers  are  wearing.  Everything  is 
there  which  a  mechanism  can  give,  but  the  life-giv- 
ing currents  no  longer  flow.    A  spiritual  mutilation 


THE  LOST  VILLAGES  213 

has  been  wrought  on  these  peasant  people  in  de- 
stroying the  familiar  setting  of  their  life.  They  had 
reached  out  filaments  of  habit  and  love  to  the  deep- 
set  hearth  and  ancient  rafters.  The  curve  of  the 
village  street  was  familiar  to  their  eye,  and  the  pro- 
file of  the  staunch  time-resisting  houses. 

From  a  new  wooden  structure,  with  one  fair-sized, 
very  neat  room  in  it,  a  girl  came  out  to  talk  with 
us.  She  was  about  twenty  years  old,  with  a  settled 
sadness  in  her  face.  Her  old  home  had  stood  on 
what  was  now  a  vegetable  garden.  A  fragment  of 
wall  was  still  jutting  up  out  of  the  potatoes.  Every- 
thing that  was  dear  to  her  had  been  carefully  burned 
by  the  Germans. 

"All  the  same,  it  is  my  own  home,"  she  said, 
pointing  to  the  new  shack,  "it  does  very  well.  But 
my  mother  could  not  stand  it  that  everything  was 
gone.  We  ran  away  for  the  few  days  that  the 
Germans  were  here.  My  mother  died  eight  days 
after  we  came  back." 

The  51st  Regiment  of  German  Infantry  entered 
the  village,  and  burned  it  by  squirting  petrol  on 
piles  of  straw  in  the  houses.  The  machine  they  used 
was  like  a  bicycle  pump — a  huge  syringe.  Of  the 
Town  Hall  simply  the  front  is  standing,  carrying  its 
date  of  1836.  Seventeen  steps  go  up  its  exterior, 
leading  to  nothing  but  a  pit  of  rubbish. 


214    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"For  three  days  I  lay  hidden  without  bread  to 
eat,"  said  a  passer-by. 

An  old  peasant  talked  with  us.  He  told  us  that 
the  Germans  had  come  down  in  the  night,  and 
burned  the  village  between  four  and  six  in  the  morn- 
ing. A  little  later,  they  fired  on  the  church.  With 
petrol  on  hay  they  had  burned  his  own  home. 

"Tout  brule,"  he  kept  repeating,  as  he  sent  his 
gaze  around  the  wrecked  village.  He  gestured  with 
his  stout  wooden  stick,  swinging  it  around  in  a  circle 
to  show  the  completeness  of  the  destruction.  Five 
small  boys  had  joined  our  group.  The  old  man 
swung  his  cane  high  enough  to  clear  the  heads  of  the 
youngsters.  One  of  them  ran  off  to  switch  a  wan- 
dering cow  into  the  home  path. 

"Doucement,"  said  the  old  man.     ("Gently.") 

We  went  to  his  home,  his  new  home,  a  brick  house, 
built  by  the  English  Quakers,  who  have  helped  in 
much  of  this  reconstruction  work.  He  and  his  wife 
live  looking  out  on  the  ruin  of  their  old  home. 

"Here  was  my  bed,"  he  said,  "and  here  the  chim- 
ney plate." 

He  showed  the  location  and  the  size  of  each  fa- 
miliar thing  by  gestures  and  measurements  of  his 
hands.  Nine  of  the  neighbors  had  lain  out  in  the 
field,  while  the  Germans  burned  the  village.  He 
took  me  down  into  the  cave,  where  he  had  later  hid- 
den; the  stout  vaulted  cellar  under  the  ruined  house. 


THE  LOST  VILLAGES  215 

"It  is  fine  and  dry,"  I  suggested. 

"Not  dry,"  he  answered,  pointing  to  the  roof.  I 
felt  it.    It  was  wet  and  cold. 

"I  slept  here,"  he  said,  "away  from  the  entrance 
where  I  could  be  seen." 

His  wife  was  made  easier  by  talking  with  us. 

"How  many  milliards  will  bring  us  back  our  hap- 
piness?" she  asked.  "War  is  hard  on  civilians.  My 
husband  is  seventy-eight  years  old." 

The  cupboard  in  her  new  home  stood  gaping, 
because  it  had  no  doors. 

"I  have  asked  the  carpenter  in  Revigny  to  come 
and  make  those  doors,"  she  explained,  "but  he  is 
always  too  busy  with  coffins;  twenty-five  and  thirty 
coffins  a  day." 

These  are  for  the  dead  of  Verdun. 

When  the  Germans  left  Sommeilles,  French  offi- 
cers found  in  one  of  the  cellars  seven  bodies:  those 
of  Monsieur  and  Madame  Alcide  Adnot,  a  woman, 
thirty-five  years  old,  and  her  four  children,  eleven 
years,  five,  four,  and  a  year  and  a  half  old.  The 
man  had  been  shot,  the  young  mother  with  the  right 
forearm  cut  off,  and  the  body  violated,  the  little  girl 
violated,  one  of  the  children  with  his  head  cut  off. 
All  were  lying  in  a  pool  of  blood,  with  the  splatter 
reaching  a  distance  of  ninety  centimeters.  The  Ger- 
mans had  burned  the  house,  thinking  that  the  fire 


2i6    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

would  destroy  the  evidence  of  their  severity,  but  the 
flames  had  not  penetrated  to  the  cellar. 

Sommeilles  is  in  one  of  the  loveliest  sections  of 
Europe,  where  the  fields  lie  fertile  under  a  tem- 
perate sun,  and  the  little  rivers  glide  under  green 
willow  trees.  Villages  of  peasants  have  clustered 
here  through  centuries.  One  or  two  of  the  hundreds 
of  builders  that  lifted  Rheims  and  Chartres  would 
wander  from  the  larger  work  to  the  village  church 
and  give  their  skill  to  the  portal,  adding  a  choice- 
ness  of  stone  carving  and  some  bit  of  grotesquerie. 
Scattered  through  the  valleys  of  the  Marne,  and 
Meuse,  and  Moselle,  you  come  on  these  snatches  of 
the  great  accent,  all  the  lovelier  for  their  quiet  setting 
and  unfulfilled  renown. 

The  peasant  knew  he  was  part  of  a  natural  proc- 
ess, a  slow,  long-continuing  growth,  whose  begin- 
nings were  not  yesterday,  and  whose  purpose  would 
not  end  with  his  little  life.  And  the  aspect  of  the 
visible  world  which  reinforced  this  inner  sense  was 
the  look  of  his  Town  Hall  and  his  church,  his  own 
home  and  the  homes  of  his  neighbors — the  work  of 
no  hasty  builders.  In  the  stout  stone  house,  with 
its  gray  slabs  of  solidity,  he  and  his  father  had  lived, 
and  his  grandfather,  and  on  back  through  the  gen- 
erations. There  his  son  would  grow  up,  and  one  day 
inherit  the  house  and  its  goods,  the  gay  garden  and 
the  unfailing  fields. 


THE  LOST  VILLAGES  217 

Things  are  dear  to  them,  for  time  has  touched 
them  with  affectionate  association.  The  baker's  wife 
at  Florent  in  the  Argonne  is  a  strapping  ruddy 
woman  of  thirty  years  of  age,  instinct  with  fun  and 
pluck,  and  contemptuous  of  German  bombs.  But 
the  entrance  to  her  cellar  is  protected  by  sand-bags 
and  enormous  logs. 

"You  are  often  shelled^"  asked  my  friend. 

"A  little,  nearly  every  day,"  she  answered.  "But 
it's  all  right  in  the  cellar.  For  instance,  I  have  re- 
moved my  lovely  furniture  down  there.  It  is  safe  in 
the  shelter." 

"Oh,  then,  you  care  more  for  your  furniture  than 
you  do  for  your  own  safety*?" 

"Why,"  she  answered,  "you  can't  get  another  set 
of  furniture  so  easily  as  all  that."  And  she  spoke 
of  a  clock  and  other  wedding-presents  as  precious  to 
her. 

A  family  group  in  Vassincourt  welcomed  us  in  the 
room  they  had  built  out  of  tile  and  beams  in  what 
was  once  the  shed.  The  man  was  blue-eyed  and  fair 
of  hair,  the  woman  with  a  burning  brown  eye,  the 
daughter  with  loosely  hanging  hair  and  a  touch  of 
wildness.  The  family  had  gone  to  the  hill  at  the 
south  and  watched  their  village  and  their  home 
bum.  They  had  returned  to  find  the  pigs  ripped 
open.  The  destruction  of  live  stock  was  something 
more  to  them  than  lost  property,  than  dead  meat. 


2i8    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

There  is  an  intimate  sense  of  kinship  between  a 
peasant  and  his  live  stock — the  horse  that  carries  him 
to  market,  his  cows  and  pigs,  the  ducks  that  bathe 
in  the  pool  of  his  barnyard  and  the  hens  that  bathe 
in  the  roadside  dust.  No  other  property  is  so  per- 
sonal. They  had  lost  their  two  sons  in  the  war. 
The  woman  in  speaking  of  the  French  soldiers  called 
them  "Ces  Messieurs,"  "these  gentlemen." 

In  this  village  is  a  bran-new  wooden  shed,  "Cafe 
des  Amis,"  with  the  motto,  "A  la  Renaissance,"  "To 
the  Rebirth." 

In  Sermaize,  nearly  five  hundred  men  marched 
away  to  fight.  When  the  Germans  fell  on  the  town, 
2,200  were  living  there.  Of  these  1,700  have  re- 
turned. There  are  150  wooden  sheds  for  them,  and 
a  score  of  new  brick  dwellings,  and  twenty-four 
brick  houses  are  now  being  built.  Six  hundred  are 
living  in  the  big  hotel,  once  used  in  connection  with 
the  mineral  springs  for  which  the  place  was  famous : 
its  full  name  is  Sermaize-les-Bains.  Eight  hundred 
of  the  840  houses  were  shelled  and  burned — one- 
third  by  bombardment,  two-thirds  by  a  house  to 
house  burning. 

The  Hotel  des  Voyageurs  is  a  clean  new  wooden 
shed,  with  a  small  dining-room.  This  is  built  on 
the  ruins  of  the  old  hotel.  The  woman  proprietor 
said  to  me : 

"We  had  a  grand  hotel,  with  twelve  great  bed- 


THE  LOST  VILLAGES  219 

rooms  and  two  dining-rooms.  It  was  a  fine  large 
place." 

The  Cafe  des  Allies  is  a  small  wooden  shed,  look- 
ing like  the  store-room  of  a  logging  camp.  We 
talked  with  the  proprietor  and  his  wife.  They  used 
to  be  manufacturers  of  springs,  but  their  business 
was  burned,  their  son  is  dead  in  the  war,  and  they 
are  too  old  to  get  together  money  and  resume  the 
old  work.  So  they  are  running  a  counter  of  soft 
drinks,  beer  and  post  cards.  The  burning  of  their 
store  has  ended  their  life  for  them. 

We  talked  with  the  acting  Mayor  of  Sermaize, 
Paul  Frangois  Grosbois-Constant.  He  is  a  merchant, 
fifty-four  years  old.  The  Germans  burned  his  six 
houses,  which  represented  his  lifetime  of  savings. 

''The  Germans  used  pastilles  in  burning  our 
houses,"  he  said,  "little  round  lozenges,  the  size  of  a 
twenty-five-centime  piece  (this  is  the  same  size  as  an 
American  quarter  of  a  dollar).  These  hop  about 
and  spurt  out  fire.  They  took  fifty  of  our  inhab- 
itants and  put  them  under  arrest,  some  for  one  day, 
others  for  three  days.  Five  or  six  of  our  people 
were  made  to  dress  in  soldiers'  coats  and  casques, 
and  were  then  forced  to  mount  guard  at  the  bridges. 
The  pillage  was  widespread.  The  wife  and  the 
daughter  of  Auguste  Brocard  were  so  frightened  by 
the  Germans  that  they  jumped  into  the  river,  the 
river  Saulx.    Brocard  tried  to  save  them,  but  was 


220    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

held  back  by  the  Germans.  Later,  when  he  took  out 
the  dead  bodies  from  the  river,  he  found  a  bullet 
hole  in  the  head  of  each." 

As  we  drove  away  from  Sermaize,  I  saw  in  the 
village  square  that  a  fountain  was  feebly  playing, 
lifting  a  thin  jet  of  water  a  few  inches  above  the 
basin. 


II 


THE    HOMELESS 


WE  are  a  nomadic  race,  thriving  on  change. 
Apartment  houses  are  our  tents :  many  of 
us  preempt  a  new  flat  every  moving  day. 
This  is  in  part  an  inheritance  from  our  pioneer  readi- 
ness to  strike  camp  and  go  further.  It  is  the  adap- 
tability of  a  restless  seeking.  It  is  also  the  gift  made 
by  limitless  supplies  of  immigrants,  who,  having  torn 
up  their  roots  from  places  where  their  family  line 
had  lived  for  a  thousand  years,  pass  from  street  to 
street,  and  from  city  to  city,  of  the  new  country, 
with  no  heavy  investment  of  affection  in  the  local 
habitation.  Once  the  silver  cord  of  ancestral  mem- 
ory is  loosened,  there  is  little  in  the  new  life  to  bind 
it  together.  The  wanderer  flows  on  with  the  flowing 
life  about  him.  To  many  of  us  it  would  be  an 
effort  of  memory  to  tell  where  we  were  living  ten 
years  ago.  The  outline  of  the  building  is  already 
dim. 

The  peasant  of  France  has  found  a  truth  of  life  in 
planting  himself  solidly  in  one  place,  with  an  abid- 

221 


222     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ing  love  for  his  own  people,  for  the  house  and  the 
village  where  he  was  born.  Four  centuries  ago  the 
French  poet  wrote: 


*&^ 


Heureux  qui  comme  Ulysse  a  fait  un  beau  voyage 
Ou  comme  cestuy-la  qui  conquit  la  Toison 
Et  puis  est  retourne  plein  d' usage  et  raison 
Vivre  entre  ses  parents  le  teste  de  son  age. 

Quand  revoiray-je  helas!  de  mon  petit  village 
Fumer  la  cheminee,  et  en  quelle  saison 
Revoiray-je  le  clos  de  ma  pauvre  maison 
Qui  m'est  une  province,  et  beaucoup  davantage. 

Plus  me  plaist  le  sejour  qu'ont  basty  mes  ayeux 
Que  des  palais  romains  le  front  audacieux 
Plus  que  le  marbre  dur  me  plaist  I'ardoise  fine. 

Plus  mon  Loyre  gaulois  que  le  Tybre  latin 

Plus  mon  petit  Lire  que  le  mont  Palatin 

Et  plus  que  fair  marin  la  douceur  Angevine. 

Happy  the  man  who  Hke  Ulysses  has  traveled  far  and  wide, 

Or  like  that  other  who  won  the  Golden  Fleece, 

And  then  wended  home  full  worn  and  full  wise. 

To  spend  among  his  own  folk  the  remainder  of  his  days. 

When  shall  I  see  once  more  alack!  above  my  little  hamlet 
Rise  the  chimney  smoke,  and  in  what  season  of  the  year 
Shall  I  see  once  more  the  garden  of  my  humble  home, 
Which  is  a  wide  province  in  my  eyes,  and  even  more. 


I 


THE  HOMELESS  223 

Dearer  to  my  heart  is  the  home  my  forefathers  built 
Than  the  cloud-capped  tops  of  haughty  Roman  palaces. 
Dearer  than  hardest  marble  the  fine  slate  of  my  roof. 

Dearer  my  Gaulish  Loire  than  Tiber's  Latin  stream. 
Dearer  my  little  hill  of  Lire  than  Mount  Palatinus, 
And  than  sea-airs  the  sweet  air  of  Anjou. 

Till  yesterday  that  voice  still  spoke  for  the  un- 
changing life  of  France.  The  peasant  remained 
where  his  forefathers  had  broken  the  fields  and 
loaded  the  wains.  Why  should  he  be  seeking  strange 
lands,  like  the  troubled  races'?  He  found  his  place 
of  peace  long  ago.  To  what  country  can  he  travel 
where  the  sun  is  pleasanter  on  happy  fields'?  What 
people  can  he  visit  who  have  the  dignity  and  sim- 
plicity of  his  neighbors? 

Then  the  hordes  from  the  north  came  down,  eager 
to  win  this  sunny  quietness,  curious  to  surprise  the 
secret  of  this  Latin  race,  with  its  sense  of  form  and 
style,  its  charm,  its  sweet  reasonableness.  Why  are 
these  Southerners  loved?  Why  do  their  accomplish- 
ments conquer  the  world  so  gently,  so  irresistibly? 
Surely  this  hidden  beauty  will  yield  to  violence.  So 
it  came,  that  dark  flood  from  the  north,  pouring 
over  the  fertile  provinces,  breaking  the  peace  of  these 
peasants.  Something  was  destroyed  where  the 
human  spirit  had  made  its  home  for  a  longer  time 
than  the  individual  life:  a  channel  for  the  genera- 


224    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tions.  Their  fields  are  still  red  with  the  poppy,  but 
their  young  men  who  reaped  are  busy  on  redder 
fields.  Their  village  street  is  crumbled  stone, 
through  which  the  thistle  thrusts.  The  altar  of  their 
church  is  sour  with  rain  water,  and  the  goodness  of 
life  is  a  legend  that  was  slain  in  a  moment  of  time. 
A  modem  city  can  be  rebuilt.  An  ancient  village  can 
never  be  rebuilt.  That  soft  rhythm  of  its  days  was 
caught  from  old  buildings  and  a  slowly  ripening 
tradition.  Something  distinguished  has  passed  out 
of  life.  What  perished  at  Rheims  in  the  matchless 
unreturning  light  of  its  windows  was  only  a  larger 
loss.    A  quiet  radiance  was  on  these  villages,  too. 

Still  the  peasants  return  to  the  place  they  know. 
Even  their  dead  are  more  living  than  the  faces  of 
strangers  in  cities.  The  rocks  in  the  gutter  once 
held  their  home.  There  is  sadness  in  a  place  where 
people  have  lived  and  been  happy,  and  now  count 
their  dead.  It  is  desolate  in  a  way  wild  nature  never 
is,  for  the  raw  wilderness  groups  itself  into  beauty 
and  order.  It  would  have  been  better  to  let  the 
forest  thicken  through  centuries,  than  to  inherit  the 
home  where  one  day  the  roof-tree  is  razed  by  the 
invader.  These  peasants  are  not  hysterical.  They 
are  only  broken-hearted.  They  tell  their  story  in  a 
quiet  key,  in  simple  words,  with  a  kind  of  grayness 
of  recital.  There  are  certain  experiences  so  appalling 
to  the  consciousness  that  it  can  never  reveal  the 


THE  HOMELESS  225 

elements  of  its  distress,  because  what  was  done  killed 
what  could  tell.  But  the  light  of  the  day  is  never 
seen  again  with  the  same  eyes  after  the  moment 
that  witnessed  a  child  tortured,  or  one's  dearest  shot 
down  like  a  clay  pigeon.  The  girl,  who  was  made 
for  happiness,  when  she  is  wife  and  mother,  will 
pass  on  a  consciousness  of  pain  which  had  never 
been  in  her  line  before.  The  thing  that  happened 
in  a  moment  will  echo  in  the  troubled  voices  of  her 
children,  and  a  familiar  music  is  broken. 


Ill 


MON    GAMIN 


ONE  day  when  I  was  in  Lorraine,  a  woman 
came  to  me  carrying  in  her  hands  a  boy's 
cap,  and  a  piece  of  rope.  She  was  a  peasant 
woman  about  forty  years  of  age,  named  Madame 
Plaid.    She  said: 

"You  see,  Monsieur,  I  found  him  in  the  fields. 
He  was  not  in  the  house  when  the  Germans  came 
here.  I  thought  that  my  little  scamp  (mon  gamin) 
was  in  danger,  so  I  looked  everywhere  for  him.  He 
was  fourteen  years  old,  only  that,  at  least  he  would 
have  been  in  September,  but  he  seemed  to  be  all  of 
nineteen  with  his  height  and  his  size. 

"I  asked  the  Prussians  if  they  had  not  seen  my 
little  scamp.  They  were  leading  me  off  and  I  feared 
that  they  would  take  me  away  with  them.  The 
Prussians  said  that  somebody  had  fired  on  them 
from  my  house. 

"Your  son  had  a  rifle  with  him  and  he  fired  on 
us,  just  like  the  others,"  they  said. 

"I  answered:  'My  little  scamp  did  not  do  any- 
thing, I  am  sure.' 

226 


"MON  GAMIN"  227 

"  'What  shirt  did  he  have  on?'  they  asked. 

"  'A  little  white  shirt  with  red  stripes,'  I  replied. 

"They  insisted  that  he  was  the  one  that  had  fired. 

"When  the  cannonading  stopped,  the  people  who 
had  been  with  me  told  me  that  they  had  seen  a  young 
man  lying  stretched  out  in  the  field,  but  they  could 
not  tell  who  it  was.  I  wanted  to  see  who  it  was 
that  was  lying  there  dead,  and  yet  I  drew  back. 

"  'No,'  I  said  to  myself,  'I  am  too  much  afraid.' 

"But  I  crossed  the  field.  I  saw  his  cap  which 
had  fallen  in  front  of  him.  I  came  closer.  It  was 
he.    He  had  his  hands  tied  behind  his  back. 

"See.  Here  is  the  cord  with  which  he  had  been 
killed.  For  he  had  not  been  shot.  He  had  been 
hanged. 

(She  held  out  to  us  the  cord — a  coil  of  small  but 
strong  rope.) 

"And  here  is  the  cap. 

(She  was  holding  the  gray  cap  in  her  two  hands.) 

"When  I  saw  him,  I  said  to  the  Prussians: 

"  'Do  the  same  thing  to  me  now.  Without  my 
little  scamp  I  cannot  go  on.    So  do  the  same  to  me.' 

"Three  weeks  later,  I  went  again  to  search  for  my 
little  scamp.  I  did  not  find  him  any  more.  The 
French  soldiers  had  buried  him  with  their  dead." 


IV 


THE  MAYOR  ON  THE  HILLTOP 

WE  were  searching  for  the  Mayor  of  Cler- 
mont, not  the  official  Mayor,  but  the  real 
Mayor.  This  war  has  been  a  selector  of 
persons.  When  the  Germans  came  down  on  the 
villages,  timid  officials  sometimes  ran  and  left  their 
people  to  be  murdered.  Then  some  quiet  cure,  or 
village  store-keeper,  or  nun,  took  over  the  leader- 
ship. Wherever  one  of  these  strong  souls  has  lived 
in  the  region  of  death,  in  that  village  he  has  saved 
life.  When  the  weak  and  aged  were  wild  with 
terror,  and  hunted  to  their  death,  he  has  spoken 
bravely  and  acted  resolutely.  The  sudden  rise  to 
power  of  obscure  persons  throughout  Northern 
France  reminds  an  American  of  the  life  history  of 
Ulysses  Grant.  So  at  Clermont,  the  Mayor  took  to 
his  heels,  but  Edouard  Jacquemet,  then  sixty-eight 
years  old,  and  his  wife,  stayed  through  the  bonfire 
of  their  village  and  their  home.  And  ever  since,  they 
have  stayed  and  administered  affairs. 

Clermont  was  a  village  of  one  thousand  inhab- 
228 


The   Mayor  of  Clermont   and   his  wife,  who  did  not   run 
away  when  the  invaders  came. 


THE  MAYOR  ON  THE  HILLTOP    229 

itants.  Thirty-eight  persons  remained — old  people, 
religious  sisters  and  the  Jacquemets.  The  Germans 
burned  195  houses.  The  credit  falls  equally  to  a 
corps  of  Uhlans  with  the  Prince  of  Wittgenstein  at 
their  head,  and  to  the  XIII  corps  from  Wiirttem- 
berg,  commanded  by  General  von  Urach.  The  par- 
ticular regiments  were  the  121st  and  I22d  Infantry. 

We  inquired  of  soldiers  where  we  could  find  the 
Mayor. 

"He  is  up  above,"  they  said.  We  were  glad  to 
leave  the  hot  little  village,  with  its  swarms  of  flies, 
its  white  dust  that  lay  on  top  of  the  roadbed  in 
thick,  puify  heaps,  and  its  huddles  of  ruined  houses. 
Each  whirring  camion,  minute  by  minute,  grinding 
its  heavy  wheels  into  the  crumbling  road,  lifted 
white  mists  of  dust,  which  slowly  drifted  upon  the 
leaves  of  trees,  the  grass  of  the  meadows,  and  the 
faces  of  soldiers.  Eyebrows  were  dusted,  hair  went 
white,  mustaches  grew  fanciful.  Nature  and  man 
had  lost  all  variety,  all  individuality.  They  were 
powdered  as  if  for  a  Colonial  ball.  The  human 
eye  and  the  eyes  of  cattle  and  horses  were  the  only 
things  that  burned  with  their  native  color  through 
that  veil  of  white  that  lay  on  Clermont. 

We  went  up  a  steep,  shaded  hill,  where  the  clay 
still  held  the  summer  rains.  The  wheels  of  our  car 
buzzed  on  the  slush — "All  out,"  and  we  did  the  last 
few  hundred  yards  on  foot.    We  were  bringing  the 


230    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Mayor  good  news.  The  Rosette  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor  had  just  been  granted  him. 

We  found  him  in  a  httle  vine-covered  old  stone 
house  on  the  hilltop,  where  he  took  refuge  after  his 
village  was  burned.  He  wept  when  my  friend  told 
him  that  the  emblem  of  the  highest  honor  in  France 
was  on  its  way. 

"It  means  I  have  done  something  for  my  country," 
he  said. 

He  is  a  cripple  with  one  leg  short.  He  goes  on 
crutches,  but  he  goes  actively.  He  has  fulfilled  his 
life.  His  sons  are  fighting  for  France,  and  he,  too, 
has  served,  and  his  service  has  been  found  acceptable 
in  her  sight.  He  is  bright  and  cheery,  very  patient 
and  sweet,  with  that  gentleness  which  only  goes 
with  high  courage.  But  underneath  that  kindliness 
and  utter  acceptance  of  fate,  I  felt  that  "deep  lake 
of  sadness,"  which  comes  to  one  whose  experience  has 
been  over- full. 

So  we  came  through  the  dust  of  the  plain  and 
the  clay  of  the  climb  to  a  good  green  place.  It  is  a 
tiny  community  set  on  a  hill.  That  hill  was  cov- 
ered with  stately  trees — a  lane  of  them  ran  down 
the  center  of  the  plateau,  as  richly  green  and  fragrant 
as  the  choicest  pine  grove  of  New  England.  The 
head  of  the  lane  lost  itself  in  a  smother  of  low-lying 
bushes  and  grasses,  lush-green  and  wild.  But  just 
before  it  broke  into  lawlessness,  one  stout  tree,  stand- 


THE  MAYOR  ON  THE  HILLTOP    231 

ing  alone,  shot  up;  and  tacked  to  its  stalwart  trunk, 
this  notice  fronts  the  armies  of  France: 


"Cantonnement  de  Clermont. 
"Il  est  formellement  interdit  aux  visiteurs 

OU  AUTRES  d'aTTACHER  DES   CHEVAUX  AUX  ARBRES. 
ToUTE  degradation  aux  ARBRES  SERA  SEVEREMENT 

reprimee. 

"Ordre  du  Commandant  de  Cantonnement. 

"It  is  absolutely  forbidden  to  visitors  or 
anybody  else  to  tie  their  horses  to  the  trees. 

Any    DAMAGE    TO    THE    TREES    WILL    BE    SEVERELY 
PUNISHED. 

"By  ORDER  OF  THE  CoMMANDER." 

Little  Strips  of  bark  from  the  protected  tree 
framed  the  notice. 

There  was  the  voice  of  France,  mindful  of  the 
eternal  compulsions  of  beauty,  even  under  the  guns. 
No  military  necessity  must  destroy  a  grove.  In  the 
wreckage  of  almost  every  precious  value  in  that 
Argonne  village,  the  one  perfect  thing  remaining 
must  be  cherished. 

Nowhere  else  have  I  ever  seen  that  combination 
of  wildness  and  stateliness,  caught  together  in  one 
little  area,  except  on  some  hill  crest  of  New  Hamp- 
shire. For  the  first  time  in  two  years  I  felt  utterly 
at  home.     This  was  the  thing  I  knew  from  child- 


232    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

hood.  Nothing  that  happened  here  could  seem 
strange.  Nothing  spoken  in  that  grove  of  firs  would 
fall  in  an  alien  tongue.  The  lane  was  doubly 
flanked  by  great  growths,  planted  in  1848 — the  inner 
line  of  cypresses,  the  outer  windshield  of  fir  trees. 
One  lordly  iir  had  been  blown  down  by  a  shell,  and 
cut  up  for  kindling.  Other  shell-holes  pitted  the 
grove.  We  were  standing  on  an  historic  spot.  In 
the  XIV  century,  Yolande  of  Flanders  built  her 
castle  here,  high  above  danger.  She  was  the  Coun- 
tess of  Bar-le-Duc,  the  Catherine  de  Medici  of  her 
district.  When  a  little  village  to  the  North  pro- 
tested at  her  heavy  taxes,  she  burned  the  village. 
The  Bishop  sent  two  vicars  to  expostulate.  She 
drowned  the  two  vicars,  then  built  three  churches  in 
expiation,  one  more  for  good  measure  than  the  num- 
ber of  vicars,  and  died  in  the  odor  of  sanctity.  One 
of  her  chapels  is  on  the  plateau  where  we  were 
standing.  On  the  outer  wall  is  a  sun  dial  in  colors, 
with  a  Latin  inscription  around  the  rim. 

"As  many  darts  as  there  are  hours.  Fear  only- 
one  dart,  the  last  one." 

So  the  old  illuminator  had  written  on  this  Chapel 
of  Saint  Anne. 

"Only  one  shell  will  get  you — your  own  shell. 
No  need  to  worry  till  that  comes,  and  then  you 
won't  worry,"  how  often  the  soldiers  of  France  have 


THE  MAYOR  ON  THE  HILLTOP    233 

said  that  to  me,  as  they  go  forward  in  their  blithe 
fatalism. 

Little  did  the  hand  that  groined  that  chapel  aisle 
and  fashioned  that  inscription  in  soft  blue  and  gold 
know  in  what  sad  sincerity  his  words  would  fall 
true.  When  he  lettered  in  his  message  for  the  hid- 
den years,  he  never  thought  it  would  speak  cen- 
turies away  to  the  intimate  experience  of  fighting 
men  on  the  very  spot,  and  that  his  hilltop  would 
be  gashed  with  shell-pits  where  the  great  220's  had 
come  searching,  till  the  one  fated  shell  should  find 
its  mark. 

The  Mayor  led  me  down  the  grove,  his  crutches 
sinking  into  the  conifer  bed  of  the  lane.  From  the 
rim  of  the  plateau,  we  looked  out  on  one  of  the 
great  panoramas  of  France.  The  famous  roads  from 
Varenne  and  Verdun  come  into  Clermont  and  pass 
out  to  Chalons  and  Paris.  Clermont  is  the  channel 
through  the  heart  of  France.  From  here  the  way 
lies  straight  through  Verdun  to  Metz  and  Mayence. 
We  could  see  rolling  fields,  and  mounting  hills, 
ridge  on  ridge,  for  distances  of  from  twelve  to 
twenty-five  miles.  To  the  South-East,  the  East,  and 
the  North  and  the  West,  the  sweep  of  land  lay  under 
us  and  in  front  of  us :  an  immense  brown  and  green 
bountiful  farm  country.  There  we  were,  lifted  over 
the  dust  and  strife.  In  a  practice  field,  grenades 
clattered  beneath  us.     From  over  the  horizon  line, 


234    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  guns  that  nest  from  Verdun  to  the  Somme  grum- 
bled like  summer  thunder. 

"I  have  four  sons  in  the  war,"  said  the  Mayor. 
"One  is  a  doctor.  He  is  now  a  prisoner  with  the 
Gemians.  The  other  three  are  Hussar,  Infantry  and 
Artillery." 

We  turned  back  toward  the  house.  His  wife  was 
walking  a  little  ahead  of  us,  talking  vivaciously  with 
a  couple  of  officers. 

"My  wife,"  he  went  on,  "has  the  blood  of  four 
races  in  her,  English,  Greek,  Spanish  and  French. 
She  is  a  very  energetic  woman,  and  brave.  She  is  a 
soul.  She  is  a  somebody.  {Elle  est  une  dme.  Elle 
est  quelqu^un.y 

We  talked  with  her.  She  is  brown-eyed  and  of 
an  olive  skin,  with  gayety  and  ever-changing  ex- 
pression in  the  face.  But  she  is  near  the  breaking- 
point  with  the  grief  of  her  loss,  and  the  constant 
effort  to  choke  down  the  hurt.  Her  laughter  goes 
a  little  wild.  I  felt  that  tears  lay  close  to  the  lightest 
thing  she  said.  Her  maiden  name  was  Marie- 
Amelie-Anne  Barker. 

"When  the  Germans  began  to  bombard  our  vil- 
lage," she  told  me,  "my  husband  and  I  went  down 
into  the  cellar.    He  stayed  there  a  few  minutes. 

"  'Too  damp,'  he  said.  He  climbed  upstairs  and 
sat  in  the  drawing-room  through  the  rest  of  the 


THE  MAYOR  ON  THE  HILLTOP    235 

bombardment.  Every  little  while  I  went  up  to  see 
him,  and  then  came  back  into  the  cellar. 

"After  their  bombardment  they  came  in  person. 
In  the  twilight  of  early  morning  they  marched  in, 
a  very  splendid  sight,  with  their  great  coats  thrown 
over  the  shoulder.  I  heard  them  smash  the  doors 
of  my  neighbors.  The  people  had  fled  in  fright. 
The  soldiers  piled  the  household  stuff  out  in  the 
street.  I  saw  them  load  a  camion  with  furniture 
taken  from  the  home  of  M.  Desforges  and  with 
material  taken  from  Nordmann,  our  merchant  of 
novelties. 

"A  doctor,  with  the  rank  of  Major,  seized  the 
surgical  dressings  of  our  hospital,  although  it  was 
under  the  Red  Cross  flag. 

"I  stood  in  my  door,  watching  the  men  go  by. 

"You  are  not  afraid*?"  asked  one. 

"I  am  not  afraid  of  you,"  I  replied. 

"I  believed  my  house  would  not  be  burned.  It 
was  the  house  where  the  German  Emperor  William 
the  First  spent  four  days  in  1870.  It  was  the  house 
where  he  and  Bismarck  and  Von  Moltke  mapped 
out  the  plan  of  Sedan.  You  see  it  was  the  finest 
house  in  this  part  of  France.  Each  year  since  1871, 
three  or  four  German  officers  have  come  to  visit  it, 
taking  photographs  of  it,  because  of  the  part  it 
played  in  their  history.  I  was  sure  it  would  not  be 
burned  by  them. 


236    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"I  left  all  my  things  in  it — the  silverware,  the 
little  trinkets  and  souvenirs,  handed  down  in  my 
family,  and  gathered  through  my  lifetime.  I  said 
to  myself,  if  I  take  them  out,  they  will  treat  it  as  a 
deserted  house.  I  will  show  them  we  are  living 
there,  with  everything  in  sight.  I  was  working 
through  the  day  at  the  hospital,  caring  for  the  Ger- 
man wounded. 

"The  soldiers  began  their  burning  with  the  house 
of  a  watchmaker.  They  burned  my  house.  I  saw  it 
destroyed  bit  by  bit  (morceau  par  morceau).  I  saw 
my  husband's  study  go,  and  then  the  drawing-room, 
and  the  dining-room.  The  ivories,  the  pictures,  the 
bibelots,  everything  that  was  dear  to  me,  everything 
that  time  had  brought  me,  was  burned. 

"I  said  to  the  German  doctor  that  it  was  very 
hard. 

"He  replied:  'If  I  had  known  it  was  Madame's 
house,  I  should  have  ordered  it  to  be  spared.'  " 

We  were  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  Madame 
Jacquemet  said: 

"Come  and  see  what  we  have  now." 

She  led  us  upstairs  to  a  room  which  the  two  beds 
nearly  filled. 

"All  that  I  own  I  keep  under  the  beds,"  she  ex- 
plained. "See,  there  are  two  chairs,  two  beds. 
Nothing  more.    And  we  had  such  a  beautiful  room." 


THE  MAYOR  ON  THE  HILLTOP    237 

"Why  did  you  burn  our  homes'?"  I  asked  a  Ger- 
man officer,  after  the  village  was  in  ruins. 

"We  didn't  burn  the  place,"  he  answered.  "It 
was  French  shells  that  destroyed  it." 

"I  was  here,"  I  answered.  "There  were  no 
French  shells." 

"The  village  people  fired  on  our  troops,"  he  said. 

"I  was  here,"  I  told  him.  "The  village  people 
did  not  fire  on  your  troops.  The  village  people  ran 
away." 

"An  empty  town  is  a  town  to  be  pillaged,"  he 
explained. 

The  Mayor  took  up  the  story. 

"A  German  officer  took  me  into  his  room,  one 
day,"  he  said.     "He  closed  the  door,  and  began: 

"I  am  French  at  heart.  I  believe  that  your  vil- 
lage was  burned  as  a  spectacle  for  the  Crown  Prince 
who  has  his  headquarters  over  yonder  at  a  village  a 
few  kilometers  away." 

The  picture  he  summoned  was  so  vivid  that  I 
said,  "Nero — Nero,  for  whom  the  destruction  of  a 
city  and  its  people  was  a  spectacle.  Only  this  is  a 
little  Nero.  Out  of  date  and  comic,  not  grandiose 
and  convincing." 

Monsieur  Jacquemet  went  on: 

"They  burned  our  houses  with  pastilles,  the  little 
round  ones  with  a  hole  in  the  middle  that  jump  as 
they  burn.    In  the  Maison  Maucolin  we  found  three 


238    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

liters  of  them.  The  Thirty-first  French  Regiment 
picked  them  up  when  they  came  through,  so  that 
no  further  damage  should  come  of  them.  The  Ger- 
mans left  a  sackful  in  the  park  belonging  to  M.  Des- 
forges.  The  sack  contained  500  little  bags,  and 
each  bag  had  100  pastilles.  Monsieur  Grasset  threw 
the  sack  into  water,  as  a  measure  of  safety." 

The  Mayor  had  saved  a  few  pastilles  as  evidence, 
and  passed  one  of  them  around.  He  has  an  exact 
turn  of  mind.  He  made  out  a  map  of  his  hilltop, 
marking  with  spots  and  dates  the  shells  that  seek 
his  home. 

Under  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  linden  trees — the 
historian  of  our  party,  Lieutenant  Madelin,  won- 
dered how  old:  "four,  five  centuries,  perhaps" — we 
ate  an  open-air  luncheon.  Our  hosts  were  the  Mayor 
and  his  wife.  Our  fellow-guests  were  the  Captain 
and  the  Major — the  Major  a  compact,  ruddy,  sailor 
type  of  man,  with  the  far-seeing  look  in  his  blue  eyes 
of  one  whose  gaze  comes  to  focus  at  the  horizon 
line. 

It  seemed  to  me  like  the  simple  farm-meals  I  had 
so  often  eaten  on  the  New  England  hills,  in  just 
that  rapid  sunlight  playing  through  the  leaves  of 
great  trees,  in  just  that  remote  clean  lift  above  the 
dust  and  hurt  of  things.  I  thought  to  myself,  I 
shall  always  see  the  beauty  of  this  little  hill  rising 
clear  of  the  ruin  of  its  village. 


THE  MAYOR  ON  THE  HILLTOP    239 

Then  we  said  good-by,  and  I  saw  on  the  doorstep, 
sitting  motionless  and  dumb,  the  mother  of  a  soldier. 
Her  white  hair  was  almost  vivid  against  the  decent 
somber  black  of  her  hood,  and  dress.  There  was  a 
great  patience  in  her  figure,  as  she  sat  resting  her 
chin  on  her  hand  and  looking  off  into  the  trees,  as 
if  time  was  nothing  any  more.  For  many  days  the 
carpenters  had  not  been  able  to  work  fast  enough 
to  make  coffins  for  the  dead  of  Clermont.  She  was 
waiting  on  the  Mayor's  doorstep  for  the  coffin  of 
her  son. 


THE  LITTLE  CORPORAL 

WE  were  in  the  barracks  of  the  Eighth  Regi- 
ment of  Artillery.  They  have  been  con- 
verted into  a  home  for  refugees,  but  the 
old  insignia  of  famous  victories  still  adorn  the  walls. 
We  were  talking  with  Madame  Derlon.  She  is  a 
refugee  from  Pont-a-Mousson,  widowed  by  German 
severity.  But  unlike  so  many  women  of  Lorraine 
whom  I  met,  she  still  could  look  to  her  line  continu- 
ing. For  while  she  sat,  slightly  bent  over  and  tired, 
Charles,  her  fifteen-year-old  son  ("fifteen  and  a  half. 
Monsieur"),  stood  tall  and  straight  at  her  side. 
While  the  mother  told  me  her  story,  I  looked  up 
from  her  and  saw  on  the  wall  the  escutcheon  of  the 
Regiment,  and  I  read  in  illuminated  letters  the 
names  of  the  battles  in  which  it  had  fought : 

"Austerlitz — 1805. 
Friedland — 1807. 
Sebastopol —  1 854. 
Solferino — 1859." 
240 


THE  LITTLE  CORPORAL  241 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war,  her  husband  was 
ferryman  of  the  Moselle,  she  said.  He  carried 
civilians  and  soldiers  across.  Their  little  son,  then 
thirteen  years  old,  liked  to  be  near  him,  and  watch 
the  river  and  the  passing  of  people.  The  boy  had 
discovered  a  cellar  under  the  bridge — a  fine  under- 
ground room,  well-vaulted,  where  boy-like  he  had 
hidden  tobacco  and  where  he  often  stayed  for  hours, 
dreaming  of  the  bold  things  he  would  do  when  his 
time  came,  and  he  would  be  permitted  to  enlist. 
His  day  was  closer  than  he  guessed.  A  cave  is  as 
wonderful  to  a  French  boy  as  it  was  to  Tom  Sawyer. 
Sometimes  he  made  a  full  adventure  of  it  and  slept 
the  night  through  there. 

During  the  early  battles,  the  bridge  had  been 
blown  up.  So  Father  Derlon  was  kept  very  busy 
ferrying  peasants  and  stray  soldiers  from  bank  to 
bank.  One  day  three  German  patrols  came  along. 
Charles  was  standing  by  the  bridge,  watching  his 
father  sitting  in  the  wherry.  The  boy  stepped  down 
into  his  underground  room  to  get  some  tobacco.  He 
was  gone  only  five  minutes.  When  he  came  back, 
the  three  Germans  said  to  him: 

"Your  father  is  dead," 

It  was  so.  They  had  climbed  the  bridge,  and 
fired  three  times;  one  explosive  bullet  had  entered 
the  ferryman's  head,  and  two  had  shattered  his  arm.. 


242    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  Germans  said  he  had  been  carrying  soldiers 
across,  and  that  it  was  wrong  to  carry  soldiers. 

"The  little  one  came  home  crying,"  said  Madame 
Derlon.  "Since  that  moment,  the  little  one  left 
home  without  telling  me.  He  did  not  send  me  any 
news  of  himself.  I  searched  everywhere  to  try  to 
find  a  trace  of  him.  Monsieur  Louis  Marin,  the 
Deputy,  told  me  he  had  seen  a  boy  like  my  little  one 
following  the  soldiers.  Actually  he  had  been 
adopted  by  the  95th  Territorial  Regiment." 

He  told  the  soldiers  that  he  had  just  seen  his 
father  killed  by  the  Germans.  One  of  the  captains 
took  him  under  his  protection.  The  boy  insisted  on 
becoming  a  fighter.  He  was  brave  and  they  made 
him  Corporal.  He  fell  wounded  in  action,  winning 
the  Croix  de  Guerre. 

Charles  Derlon,  the  little  Corporal  of  the  95th 
Infantry,  has  a  bright  open  face,  but  it  is  a  face 
into  which  has  passed  the  look  of  responsibility.  In 
one  moment,  he  became  a  man,  and  he  has  that  quiet 
dignity  of  a  boy  whom  older  men  respect  and  make 
a  comrade  of.  He  holds  himself  with  the  trim 
shoulders  and  straight  carriage  of  a  little  soldier  of 
France. 

One  of  us  asked  him : 

"And  weren't  you  afraid,  my  boy,  of  the  fight?" 

"It  is  all  the  same  to  me,"  he  replied,  "when  I  get 
used  to  it." 


The   Little   French  Corporal,   who  joined   the   army  at    14 
years  of  age  and,  wounded,  won  the  Cross  of  War. 


The  Cure  of  Triaucourt  (at  the  right)  who  stayed  with 
his  people  when  the  village  was  burned.  Next  him,  in 
trench  helmet,  stands  one  of  the  thousands  of  French  priests 
who  serve  by  day  and  night  at  the  front,  rescuing  the 
wounded,  and  cheering  the  fighting  men. 


THE  LITTLE  CORPORAL  243 

"And  why,"  we  pressed  him,  "did  you  run  away 
without  going  to  your  mother^  Didn't  you  think 
she  might  be  anxious*?" 

"Because  I  knew  very  well,"  he  said,  "that  she 
would  not  want  to  let  me  go." 

"And  you  are  away  from  the  army  now,  'on  per- 
mission"?" we  asked. 

Very  proudly  he  answered : 

"No,  Monsieur.  I  am  on  leave  of  convalescence 
for  three  months.  I  have  been  wounded  in  three 
places,  two  wounds  in  my  arm,  and  one  in  my  leg." 


VI 


THE  GOOD  CURE 


WHAT  was  true  of  Joan  of  Arc  is  true 
to-day.  There  is  no  leadership  like  the 
power  of  a  holy  spirit.  It  lends  an  edge 
to  the  tongue  in  dealing  with  unworthy  enemies.  It 
gives  dignity  to  sudden  death.  Religion,  where  it 
is  sincere,  is  still  a  mighty  power  in  the  lives  of 
simple  folk  to  lift  them  to  greatness.  Out  beyond 
Rheims,  at  the  front  line  trenches,  the  tiny  village 
of  Betheny  is  knocked  to  pieces.  The  parish  church 
is  entirely  destroyed  except  for  the  front  wall. 
Against  that  wall,  an  altar  has  been  built,  where  the 
men  of  the  front  line  gather  for  service.  Over  the 
altar  I  read  the  words 

Que  le  CcBur  de  Jesus  sauve  la  ¥  ranee. 
In  that  name  many  in  France  are  working.  Such 
a  one  is  Paul  Viller,  cure  of  Triaucourt.  The  burn- 
ing of  the  village  is  the  world's  end  for  a  peasant, 
because  the  village  was  his  world.  When  the  peas- 
ants of  Triaucourt  saw  their  little  local  world  rock- 
ing, they  turned  to  the  cure.    He  was  ready. 

244 


THE  GOOD  CURE  245 

"It  is  better  to  run,"  said  the  Mayor;  "they  kill, 
those  Germans." 

As  the  cure  said  to  the  German  lieutenant  who 
tried  to  force  him  up  the  bell-tower,  "That  ascen- 
sion will  give  me  the  vertigo,"  so  he  felt  about  run- 
ning away :  his  legs  were  not  built  for  it.  He  would 
like  to  "oblige,"  but  he  was  not  fashioned  for  such 
flights. 

Cure  Viller  is  ^^  years  old,  short  and  ruddy  and 
sturdy.  In  his  books  and  his  travel,  and  well- 
grounded  Latin  education,  he  is  far  removed  from 
the  simple  villagers  he  serves.  But  he  has  learned 
much  from  them.  He  has  taken  on  their  little  ways. 
He  has  their  simplicity  which  is  more  distinguished 
than  the  manners  of  cities.  With  them  and  with  him 
I  felt  at  home.  That  is  because  he  was  at  home  with 
himself,  at  home  in  life.  His  house  was  full  of 
travel  pictures — Brittany  fishermen  and  nooks  of 
scenery.  He  had  the  magazine  litter,  scattered 
through  all  the  rooms,  of  a  reading  man  who  cannot 
bear  to  destroy  one  printed  thing  that  has  served  a 
happy  hour.  His  volumes  ranged  through  theology 
up  to  the  history  of  Thiers.  His  desk  was  the  desk 
of  an  executive,  orderly,  pigeon-holed,  over  which 
the  transactions  of  a  village  flow  each  day.  A  young 
priest  entered  and  stated  a  case  of  need.  The  cure 
opened  a  little  drawer,  peeled  off  five  franc  notes 
from  a  bundle,  and  saw  the  young  man  to  the  door. 


246    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

It  was  as  clean-cut  as  the  fingering  of  a  bank-cashier. 
The  only  difference  was  the  fine  courtesy  exchanged 
by  the  men. 

The  cure  talked  with  us  about  the  Germans.  We 
asked  him  how  the  peasants  felt  toward  them,  after 
the  burning  and  the  murders. 

"I  will  tell  you  how  the  village  electrician  felt," 
replied  he.  "He  came  back  after  the  troops  had  left 
and  took  a  look  about  the  village. 

"  If  I  ever  get  hold  of  those  Germans,  I'll  chew 
them  up,'  he  said  to  me. 

"  'Some  of  them  are  still  here,'  I  replied. 

"  'Show  them  to  me  quick,'  he  demanded. 

"  'They  are  in  the  church — grievously  wounded.' 

"We  went  there.  A  German  was  lying  too  high 
on  his  stretcher,  groaning  from  his  wound  and  the 
uncomfortable  position. 

"  'Here,  you,  what  are  you  groaning  about?' 
thundered  the  electrician.  He  lit  a  cigarette  and 
puffed  at  it,  as  he  glared  at  his  enemy. 

"  'Uncomfortable,  are  you?  I'll  fix  you,'  he  went 
on,  sternly.  Very  gently  he  eased  the  German  down 
into  the  softer  part  of  the  stretcher,  and  tucked  in 
his  blankets. 

"  'Now,  stop  your  groaning,'  he  commanded.  He 
stood  there  a  moment  in  silence,  then  burst  out  again 
angrily : 


THE  GOOD  CURE  247 

"  'What  are  you  eyeing  me  for?  Want  a  ciga- 
rette, do  you?' 

"He  pulled  out  a  cigarette,  put  it  in  the  lips  of 
the  wounded  man  and  lit  it.  Then  he  came  home 
with  me  and  installed  electric  lights  for  me.  That 
was  the  way  he  chewed  up  the  Germans. 

"As  for  me,  I  lost  twenty  pounds  of  weight  be- 
cause of  those  fellows.  After  they  have  been  in  a 
room,  it  is  a  chaos :  men's  clothing,  women's  under- 
garments, petticoats,  skirts,  shoes,  napkins,  cloths, 
hats,  papers,  boxes,  trunks,  curtains,  carpets,  furni- 
ture overturned  and  broken,  communicants'  robes — 
everything  in  a  mess.  I  have  seen  them  take  bottles 
of  gherkins,  cherries,  conserves  of  vegetables,  pots 
of  grease,  lard,  hams,  everything  they  could  eat  or 
drink.  What  they  couldn't  carry,  they  destroyed. 
They  opened  the  taps  of  wine  casks,  barrels  of  oil 
and  vinegar,  and  set  flowing  the  juice  of  fruits  ready 
for  distillation. 

"The  official  pillage  of  precious  objects  which  are 
to  be  sent  to  Germany  is  directed  by  an  officer.  He 
has  a  motor  car  and  men.  I  have  sometimes  asked 
for  vouchers  for  the  objects,  stolen  in  that  way.  The 
vouchers  are  marked  with  the  signature  of  the  officer 
doing  the  requisitioning,  and  with  the  stamp  of  the 
regiment.  But  who  will  do  the  paying,  and  when 
will  they  do  it?    The  plunderer  who  takes  bottles 


248    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  wine  gives  vouchers.  I  have  seen  some  of  them 
which  were  playfully  written  in  German,  reading: 

"  'Thanks,  good  people,  we  will  drink  to  your 
health.' 

"They  don't  always  have  good  luck  with  their 
pillage.  A  Boche,  who  is  an  amateur  of  honey,  rum- 
mages a  hive.  The  valiant  little  bees  hurl  them- 
selves on  the  thief  and  give  him  such  a  face  that  he 
can't  open  his  mouth  or  his  eyes  for  a  couple  of 
days.  A  Boche  once  held  out  to  me  a  handful  of 
papers  which  he  took  for  checks  of  great  value. 
They  were  receipts  filched  from  the  drawers  of 
Madame  Albert  Fautellier.  The  biter  was  well 
bitten. 

"When  the  Germans  entered  my  house  they  held 
revolvers  in  their  hand.  It  is  so  always  and  every- 
where. If  all  they  are  asking  of  you  is  a  match,  or 
a  word  of  advice,  the  Boche  takes  out  his  revolver 
from  its  holster,  and  plunges  it  back  in,  when  he  has 
got  what  he  wishes.  With  a  revolver  bullet  he 
shoots  a  steer,  and  knocks  down  a  pig  with  the  butt 
of  his  rifle.  The  animals  are  skinned.  He  doesn't 
take  anything  but  the  choice  morsels.  He  leaves  the 
rest  in  the  middle  of  the  street,  or  a  court  or  garden, 
the  head,  the  carcass  and  the  hide." 

No  man  in  France  had  a  busier  time  during  the 
German  occupation  than  this  village  cure.  He  went 
on  with  his  recital: 


THE  GOOD  CURE  249 

"On  Sunday  morning,  the  Germans  set  our  church 
clock  by  German  time,  but  the  bell  was  recalcitrant 
and  continued  to  sound  the  French  hour,  while  the 
hands  galloped  on  according  to  their  whim.  While 
they  were  here,  the  hour  didn't  matter.  We  lost 
all  notion  of  time.  We  hardly  knew  what  day  it 
was.  My  cellar  is  deep  and  well  vaulted.  I  placed 
there  a  pick-ax,  spades  and  a  large  shovel.  Every 
precaution  was  taken.  I  placed  chairs,  and  brought 
down  water.  Wax  tapers,  jammed  in  the  necks  of 
empty  bottles,  gave  us  light  enough.  That  Sunday 
and  the  days  following  I  had  the  pleasure  of  offer- 
ing hospitality  to  76  persons.  My  parishioners  knew 
that  my  home  was  wide  open  to  them.  When  you 
are  in  numbers,  you  have  less  fear. 

"The  men  went  into  the  garden  to  listen  and  see 
whether  the  battle  was  coming  closer.  I  recited  the 
rosary  in  a  loud  tone.  The  little  children  knelt  on 
their  knees  on  the  pavement  and  prayed.  Cavalry 
and  infantry  passed  my  door  in  silence.  Once  only, 
I  heard  the  Teutons  chanting;  it  was  the  third  day  of 
the  battle:  a  regiment,  muddy  and  frightened,  re- 
entered Friaucourt  chanting. 

"The  hours  go  slowly.  Suddenly  we  saw  to  the 
East  a  high  column  of  smoke.  Can  that  be  the 
village  of  Evres  on  fire?  I  think  it  is,  but  to  reassure 
my  people  I  tell  them  that  it  is  a  flax-mill  burning, 
or  the  smoke  of  cannon.     At  night  we  sleep  on 


250    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

chairs.  The  children  lie  down  on  an  immense  carpet, 
which  I  fold  over  them,  and  in  that  portfolio  they 
are  able  to  sleep. 

"Monday  was  a  day  of  glorious  sunshine.  Nature 
seemed  to  be  en  fete.  After  I  had  buried  seven 
French  and  German  dead,  and  was  walking  home,  I 
saw  coming  toward  me  Madame  Proces,  her  daugh- 
ter Helene,  in  tears,  a  German  officer  and  a  soldier. 
The  officer  asked  me: 

"  'Do  you  know  these  ladies'?' 

"  'Very  well,'  I  answered,  'they  are  honest  people 
of  my  parish.' 

"  'All  right.  This  soldier  has  not  shown  proper 
respect  to  the  young  lady.  He  will  be  rebuked.  If 
he  had  gone  further  he  would  be  shot.' 

"The  officer  then  reprimanded  the  soldier  in  my 
presence.  The  man,  stiff  at  attention,  listened  to  the 
rebuke  in  such  a  resentful,  hateful  way  that  I 
thought  to  myself  there  is  going  to  be  trouble.  The 
soldier,  his  rifle  over  his  shoulder,  went  toward  the 
Mayor's  office. 

"About  twenty  minutes  later  I  heard  firing  from 
the  direction  of  the  Mayor's  office,  two  shots,  several 
shots,  then  a  regular  fusilade.  The  sullen  soldier 
had  gone  down  there,  clapped  his  hand  to  his  head, 
said  he  was  wounded,  and  fired.  When  I  heard  the 
first  firing,  I  thought  it  was  only  one  more  of  their 


THE  GOOD  CURE  251 

performances.  I  had  seen  them  kill  a  cow  and  a  pig 
in  the  street  by  shooting  them. 

"But  at  the  sound  of  these  shots  the  Germans  ran 
out  from  the  houses  and  the  streets,  rifle  and  re- 
volver in  hand,  shouting  to  me: 

"  'Your  people  have  fired  on  us.' 

"I  protested  with  all  my  power,  saying  that  all 
our  arms  had  been  put  in  the  Mayor's  office,  and 
that  no  one  of  us  had  done  the  firing.  But  they  only 
shouted  the  louder: 

"  'Your  people  have  fired  on  us.' 

"Flames  broke  out  in  the  homes  of  Mr.  Edouard 
Gand,  and  Mr.  Gabriel  Geminel.  We  saw  the 
Boches  set  them  on  fire  with  incendiary  fuses.  Later 
on,  we  found  the  remnants  of  those  fuses. 

"Women  began  running  to  me,  weeping  and 
saying : 

"  'Cure,  save  my  father.'  'My  child  is  in  the 
flames.'     'They  are  killing  my  children.' 

"The  shooting  went  on.  The  fire  spread  and 
made  a  hot  cauldron  of  two  streets.  Cattle  and 
crops  and  houses  burned. 

"Then  a  strange  thing  happened.  Some  Germans 
aided  in  saving  clothing  and  furniture  from  two  or 
three  of  the  houses.  But  most  of  them  watched  the 
destruction,  standing  silent  and  showing  neither 
pleasure  nor  regret.     I  could  tell  it  was  no  new 


252    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

sight  for  them.  In  two  hours,  there  was  nothing  left 
of  the  thirty-five  houses  on  two  streets. 

"Our  people  ran  out,  chased  by  angry  Germans 
who  fired  on  them  as  if  they  were  hunter's  game. 
Jules  Gand,  58  5^ears  old,  was  shot  down  at  the 
threshold  of  his  door.  A  seventeen-year-old  boy 
named  Georges  Lecourtier,  taking  refuge  with  me, 
was  shot.  Alfred  Lallemand  hid  himself  in  a 
kitchen.  His  body  was  riddled  with  bullets.  We 
found  it  burned  and  lying  in  the  rubbish,  eight  days 
later.  He  was  54  years  old.  Men,  women  and  chil- 
dren fled  into  the  gardens  and  the  fields.  They 
forded  the  river  without  using  the  bridge  which  was 
right  there.  They  ran  as  far  as  Brizeaux  and 
Senard.  My  cook  ran.  She  had  a  packet  of  my 
bonds,  which  I  had  given  her  for  safe-keeping,  and 
she  had  a  basket  of  her  own  valuables.  In  her  fear 
she  threw  away  her  basket,  and  kept  my  bonds. 

"The  daughter  of  one  of  our  women,  shot  in  this 
panic,  came  to  me  and  said : 

"  'My  mother  had  fifty  thousand  francs,  some- 
where about  her.' 

"The  body  had  been  buried  in  haste,  with  none 
of  the  usual  rites  paid  the  dead,  of  washing  and 
undressing.  So  no  examination  had  been  made.  We 
dug  the  body  up  and  found  a  bag. 

"  'Is  that  the  bag*?'  I  asked  the  daughter. 

"  'It  looks  like  it,'  she  replied.    It  was  empty. 


THE  GOOD  CURE  253 

"A  day  later  we  found  another  bag  in  the  dead 
woman's  room,  and  in  it  were  the  bonds  for  fifty 
thousand  francs.  That  shows  the  haste  and  panic 
in  which  our  people  had  fled,  picking  up  the  wrong 
thing,  leaving  the  thing  of  most  value. 

"It  was  in  the  garden  of  the  Proces  family  that 
the  worst  was  done.  It  was  Heiene  Proces,  you 
remember,  who  was  insulted  by  the  German  soldier." 
The  grandmother,  78  years  old.  Miss  Laure  Menne- 
hand,  the  aunt,  who  was  81  years  old,  the  mother, 
40  years  old,  and  Heiene,  who  was  18,  ran  down 
the  garden.  They  placed  a  little  ladder  against  the 
low  wire  fence  which  separated  their  back  yard  from 
their  neighbor's.  Heiene  was  the  first  one  over,  and 
turned  to  help  the  older  women.  The  Germans  had 
followed  them,  and  riddled  the  three  women  with 
bullets.  They  fell  one  on  the  other.  Heiene  hid 
herself  in  the  cabbages. 

"That  same  evening  some  of  the  villagers  went 
with  me  to  the  garden.  The  women  looked  as  if 
they  were  sleeping.  They  had  no  trace  of  suffer- 
ing in  the  face.  Miss  Mennehand  had  her  little 
toilet  bag,  containing  1,000  francs,  fastened  to  her 
left  wrist,  and  was  still  holding  her  umbrella  in  her 
right  hand.  Her  brains  had  fallen  out.  I  collected 
them  on  a  salad  leaf  and  buried  them  in  the  garden. 

"We  carried  the  three  bodies  to  their  beds  in 
their  home.    In  one  bed,  as  I  opened  it,  I  saw  a  gold 


254    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

watch  lying.  From  Monday  evening  till  Wednesday 
morning,  the  bodies  lay  there,  with  no  wax  taper 
burning,  and  no  one  to  watch  and  pray.  By  night 
the  Germans  played  the  piano,  close  by. 

"  'Your  people  fired  on  our  soldiers,'  said  a  Cap- 
tain  to  me  next  day.     'I'll  show  you  the  window.' 

"He  led  me  down  the  street,  and  pointed. 

"  'It  is  unfortunate  you  have  chosen  that  window,' 
I  replied  to  him;  'at  the  time  you  started  burning 
our  village  the  only  person  in  the  house  was  a  para- 
lytic man,  who  was  burned  in  his  bed.' 

"It  was  the  house  of  Jean  Lecourtier,  70  years  old. 

"In  front  of  the  Poincare  house,  I  met  a  General, 
who,  they  said,  was  the  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg.  He 
said  to  me : 

"  'I  am  glad  to  see  you,  Cure.  I  congratulate  you. 
You  are  the  first  chaplain  I  have  seen.  Generally, 
when  we  get  to  a  village,  the  mayor  and  the  cure 
have  run  away.  We  officers  are  angry  at  what  has 
taken  place  here.     You  have  treated  us  well.' 

"  'Perhaps  you  will  be  able  to  stop  the  horror,' 
I  said  to  him. 

"  'Ah,  what  can  you  expect*?  It  is  war.  There 
are  bad  soldiers  in  your  army  and  in  ours.' 

"The  next  day  I  saw  him  getting  ready  to  enter  a 
magnificent  car.    His  arm  was  bandaged. 

"  'You  are  wounded,  General'?'  I  asked  him. 

"  'No,  not  that,'  he  answered. 


THE  GOOD  CURE  255 

"  'A  strained  ligament  {entorse)  V  I  asked. 

"  'No,'  he  said,  'don't  tell  me  the  French  word.' 
He  opened  a  pocket  dictionary  with  his  unhurt  hand, 
wetting  his  finger  and  turning  the  pages. 

"  'It  is  a  sprain  {luxation) ^^  he  said. 

"That  is  the  way  they  learn  a  language  as  they 
go  along. 

"  'You  are  leaving  us?'  I  asked. 

"Yes,  I  am  going  to  my  own  country  to  rest.' 

The  afternoon  had  passed  while  we  were  talking. 
We  rose  to  make  our  good-bys. 

"Come  with  rne,"  said  the  cure.  He  led  us  down 
the  village  street,  to  a  small  house,  whose  backyard 
is  a  little  garden  on  the  little  river.  All  the  setting 
was  small  and  homelike  and  simple,  like  the  village 
itself  and  the  cure.  A  young  woman  stepped  out 
from  the  kitchen  to  greet  us. 

"This  is  the  girl,"  said  Father  Viller.  Helene 
Proces  is  twenty  years  old,  with  the  dark  coloring, 
soft,  slightly  olive  skin,  brown  eyes,  of  a  thousand 
other  young  women  in  the  valley  of  the  Meuse.  But 
the  look  in  her  eyes  was  the  same  look  that  a  friend 
of  mine  carries,  though  it  is  now  twelve  years  since 
the  hour  when  her  mother  was  burned  to  death  on 
board  the  General  Slocum.  Sudden  horror  has  fixed 
itself  on  the  face  of  this  girl  of  Triacourt,  whose 
mother  and  grandmother  and  aunt  were  shot  in  front 
of  her  in  one  moment. 


256    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

She  led  us  through  the  garden.  There  were  only 
a  few  yards  of  it:  just  a  little  homely  place.  She 
brought  us  to  the  fence — a  low  wire  affair,  cheaply 
made,  and  easy  to  get  over. 

"The  bullets  were  splashing  around  me,"  she  said. 

The  tiny  river,  which  had  hardly  outgrown  its 
beginnings  as  a  brook,  went  sliding  past.  It  seemed 
a  quiet  place  for  a  tragedy. 


T 


VII 


THE  THREE-YEAR-OLD  WITNESS 

WO  persons  came  in  the  room  at  Luneville 
where  I  was  sitting.  One  was  Madame 
Dujon,  and  the  other  was  her  granddaugh- 
ter. Madame  Dujon  had  a  strong  umbrella,  with  a 
crook  handle.  Her  tiny  granddaughter  had  a  tiny 
umbrella  which  came  as  high  as  her  chin.  As  the 
grandmother  talked,  the  sadness  of  the  remembrance 
filled  her  eyes  with  tears.  Her  voice  had  pain  in  it, 
and  sometimes  the  pain,  in  spite  of  her  control,  came 
through  in  sobbing.  The  little  girl's  face  was 
burned,  and  the  wounds  had  healed  with  scars  of 
ridged  flesh  on  the  little  nose  and  cheek.  The  emo- 
tion of  the  grandmother  passed  over  into  the  child. 
With  a  child's  sensitiveness  she  caught  each  turn  of 
the  suffering.  Troubled  by  the  voice  overhead,  she 
looked  up  and  saw  the  grandmother's  eyes  filled  with 
tears.  Her  eyes  filled.  When  her  grandmother,  tell- 
ing of  the  dying  boy,  sobbed,  the  tiny  girl  sobbed. 
The  story  of  the  murder  tired  the  grandmother,  and 
she  leaned  on  her  umbrella.  The  little  girl  put  her 
chin  on  her  tiny  umbrella,  and  rested  it  there. 

257 


258    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Madame  Dujon  said: 

"I  will  try  to  tell  you  the  beginning  of  what  I 
have  passed  through,  Monsieur,  but  I  do  not  promise 
that  I  shall  arrive  at  the  end.  It  is  too  hard.  The 
day  of  the  twenty-fifth  of  August,  which  was  a 
Monday " 

As  she  spoke  her  words  were  cut  by  sobs.  She 
went  on: 

"When  the  Germans  came  to  our  house,  my  son 
had  to  go  all  over  the  house  to  find  things  that  they 
wanted.  I  did  not  understand  them,  and  they  were 
becoming  menacing.    I  said  to  them : 

"  T  am  not  able  to  do  any  better.  Fix  things 
yourself.  I  give  you  everything  here.  I  am  going 
to  a  neighbor's  house.'  " 

She  went  with  the  tiny  grand-girl,  who  was  three 
years  old,  her  son,  Lucien,  fourteen  years  old,  and 
another  son,  sixteen.  The  Germans  came  here  too, 
breaking  in  the  windows,  and  firing  their  rifles.  The 
house  was  by  this  time  on  fire.  The  face  of  the  little 
girl  was  burned. 

"My  poor  boys  wished  to  make  their  escape,  but 
the  fourteen-year-old  was  more  slow  than  the  other, 
because  the  little  fellow  was  a  bit  paralyzed,  and  he 
already  had  his  hands  and  body  burned.  He  tried  to 
come  out  as  far  as  the  pantry.  I  saw  the  poor  little 
thing  stretched  on  the  ground,  dying. 


THE  THREE-YEAR-OLD  WITNESS    259 

"  'My  God,'  he  said,  'leave  me.  I  am  done  for. 
Mamma,  see  my  bowels.' 

"I  saw  his  bowels.  They  were  hanging  like  two 
pears  from  the  sides  of  his  stomach.  Just  then  the 
Germans  came,  shooting.    I  said  to  them: 

"  'He  has  had  enough.' 

"The  little  one  turned  over  and  tried  to  get  the 
strength  to  cry  out  to  them: 

"  'Gang  of  dirty "  ("Bande  de  sal ") 

"Every  one  called  to  us  to  come  out  of  the  fire. 
The  fire  was  spreading  all  over  the  house.  I  did 
not  want  to  understand  what  they  were  saying.  I 
went  upstairs  again  where  the  little  girl  was,  to 
try  to  save  her  (see  still  the  marks  which  she  re- 
ceived). I  succeeded,  not  without  hurt,  in  carrying 
away  the  little  girl  out  of  the  flames. 

"I  had  to  leave  my  boy  in  the  flames,  and,  like  a 
mad  person,  save  myself  with  the  little  girl. 

"I  have  two  sons-in-law,  of  whom  one  is  the  father 
of  this  little  girl  here.  Look  at  her  face  marked 
with  scars." 

"Yes.  They  burned  me,"  said  the  tiny  girl.  She 
held  up  her  hand  to  the  scars  on  her  face. 

"My  other  little  boy  escaped  from  the  fire.  He 
was  hidden  all  one  day  in  a  heap  of  manure.  He  did 
not  wish  to  make  me  sad  by  telling  how  his  brother 
had  cried  out  to  die." 

Madame  Dujon  sobbed  quietly  and  could  not  go 


26o    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

on  for  a  moment.  The  little  girl  put  her  chin  on 
her  little  umbrella,  and  her  eyes  filled  with  tears. 
The  Mayor  of  Luneville,  Monsieur  Keller,  said 
to  us: 

"Madame  has  not  told  you — the  Germans  finished 
off  the  poor  child.  Seeing  that  he  was  nearly  dead, 
they  threw  him  into  the  fire  and  closed  the  door." 


VIII 

MIRMAN   AND  "mES   ENFANTS" 

WHEN  I  went  across  to  France  there  was 
one  man  whom  I  wished  to  meet.  It  was 
the  Prefect  of  the  Meurthe-et-Moselle. 
I  wanted  to  meet  him  because  he  is  in  charge  of 
the  region  where  German  f rightfulness  reached  its 
climax.  Leon  Mirman  has  maintained  a  high  morale 
in  that  section  of  France  which  has  suffered  most, 
and  which  has  cause  for  despair.  Here  it  was  that 
the  Germans  found  nothing  that  is  human  alien  to 
their  hate.  When  they  encountered  a  nun,  a  priest, 
or  a  church,  they  reacted  to  the  sacred  thing  and 
to  the  religious  person  with  desecration,  violation 
and  murder.  But  that  was  only  because  there  were 
many  Roman  Catholics  in  the  district.  They  had 
no  race  or  religious  prejudice.  When  they  came 
to  Luneville  there  was  a  synagogue  and  a  rabbi. 
They  burned  the  synagogue  and  killed  the  rabbi. 
As  the  sun  falling  round  a  helpless  thing,  their  hate 
embraced  all  grades  of  weakness  in  Lorraine.  In 
Nomeny  they  distinguished  themselves  by  a  fury 

261 


262    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

against  women.  In  some  of  the  villages  they  spe- 
cialized in  pillage.  Others  they  burned  with  zeal. 
Badonviller,  Nonhigny,  Parux,  Crevic,  Nomeny, 
Gerbeviller — the  list  of  the  villages  of  Meurthe-et- 
Moselle  is  a  tale  of  the  shame  of  Germany  and  of 
the  suffering  of  France. 

But  not  of  suffering  only.  At  no  place  is  France 
stronger  than  at  this  point  of  greatest  strain.  The 
district  is  dotted  with  great  names  of  the  humble — 
names  unknown  before  the  war,  and  now  to  be 
known  for  as  long  as  France  is  France.  Here  Sister 
Julie  held  back  the  German  Army  and  saved  her 
wounded  from  the  bayonet.  Here  the  staunch 
Mayor  of  Luneville  and  his  good  wife  stayed  with 
their  people  through  the  German  occupation. 

Leon  Mirman  is  the  Prefect  of  all  this  region. 
He  was  Director  of  Public  Charities  in  Paris,  but 
when  war  broke  out  he  asked  to  be  sent  to  the  post 
of  danger.  So  he  was  sent  to  the  city  of  Nancy  to 
rule  the  Department  of  Meurthe-et-Moselle.  The 
Prefect  of  a  Department  in  France  is  the  same  as 
the  Governor  of  a  State  in  America.  But  his  office 
in  peace  is  as  nothing  compared  to  his  power  in  time 
of  war.  He  can  suspend  a  Mayor  and  remove  an 
entire  population  from  one  village  to  another.  The 
morale  of  France  for  that  section  is  dependent  on 
the  reaction  he  makes  to  danger  and  stress. 

The  answer  of  the  ravaged  region  to  the  murder 


I 


MIRMAN  AND  "MES  ENFANTS"    263 

and  the  burning  is  a  steadiness  of  courage,  a  busy 
and  sane  life  of  normal  activity.  Beautiful  Nancy 
still  lifts  her  gates  of  gold  in  the  Place  of  Stanislaus. 
The  lovely  light  of  France  falls  softly  on  the  white 
stone  front  of  the  municipal  buildings,  and  from 
their  interior  comes  a  throbbing  energy  that  spreads 
through  the  hurt  district.  The  Prefect's  houses  for 
refugees  are  admirably  conducted.  School  "keeps" 
for  the  children  of  Pont-a-Mousson  on  a  quiet  coun- 
try road,  while  their  mothers  still  live  in  cellars  in 
the  bombarded  town,  busy  with  the  sewing  which 
has  made  their  home  famous.  They  are  embroider- 
ing table  cloths  and  napkins,  and  Americans  are 
buying  their  work.  They  are  not  allowed  any  longer 
to  be  happy,  but  they  can  go  on  creating  beauty. 
None  of  their  trouble  need  escape  into  the  clean 
white  linen  and  the  delicate  needle-work,  and  the 
Bridge  of  Pont-a-Mousson  embosses  the  centerpiece 
as  proudly  as  if  the  town  had  not  been  pounded  by 
heavy  shells  for  two  years. 

But  the  parents  were  agreed  on  one  thing:  it  was 
no  place  for  children.  So  these  and  other  hundreds 
of  little  ones  have  been  brought  together.  The 
Prefect  means  that  these  children,  some  of  whom 
have  seen  their  homes  burned,  their  mothers  hunted 
by  armed  men,  shall  have  the  evil  memory  wiped 
out.  He  is  working  that  they  shall  have  a  better 
chance  than  if  the  long  peace  had  continued.    The 


264    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

simple  homely  things  are  going  on,  as  if  the  big 
guns  could  not  reach  in. 

I  attended  the  classes  of  domestic  science,  where 
little  girls  plan  menus  for  the  family  meal.  Over- 
head, the  aeroplanes  spot  the  sky.  Three  times  in 
my  days  in  the  district  they  came  and  "laid  their 
eggs,"  in  the  phrase  of  the  soldiers.  Sometimes  a 
mother  is  killed,  sometimes  a  sister,  but  the  peaceful 
work  goes  on.  The  blackboard  is  scribbled  over 
with  chalk.  Piping  voices  repeat  their  lesson.  I 
saw  the  tiny  boys  at  school.  I  saw  the  older  boys 
working  at  trades.  Some  of  them  were  busy  at  car- 
pentry, remaking  the  material  for  their  own  village, 
bureaus,  tables  and  chairs.  We  talked  with  boys 
and  girls  from  Nomeny,  where  the  slaughter  fell  on 
women  with  peculiar  severity.  These  children  had 
seen  the  Germans  come  in.  Wherever  I  went  I  met 
children  who  had  seen  the  hand  grenades  thrown, 
their  homes  burning.  I  visited  many  hundreds  of 
these  children  at  school.  They  are  orderly  and  busy. 
It  will  take  more  than  fire  and  murder  from  unjust 
men  to  spoil  life  for  the  new  generation  of  France. 
For  that  insolence  has  released  a  good  will  in  a 
greater  race  than  the  race  that  sought  to  offend  these 
little  ones. 

And  the  same  care  has  been  put  on  the  older 
refugees.  I  saw  the  barracks  of  the  famous  Twen- 
tieth Army  Corps — the  Iron  Divisions — and  of  the 


MIRMAN  AND  "MES  ENFANTS"    265 

Eighth  Artillery  used  for  this  welfare  work.  Mir- 
man  has  taken  these  poor  herds  of  refugees  and  re- 
stored their  community  life  in  the  new  temporary 
quarters.  Here  they  have  a  hospital,  a  church  and 
a  cinema.  He  is  turning  the  evil  purpose  of  the 
Germans  into  an  instrument  for  lifting  his  people 
higher  than  if  they  had  known  only  happiness.  Be- 
yond the  gceat  power  and  authority  of  his  office  he 
is  loved.  The  Prefect  is  a  good  man,  simple  and 
high-minded. 

He  has  given  me  the  statement  that  follows  for 
the  American  people.  Let  us  remember  in  reading 
it  that  it  comes  from  the  highest  official  in.  France 
in  charge  of  the  region  where  systematic  atrocity 
was  practiced  in  an  all-inclusive  way.  On  this 
chance  section  of  the  world's  great  area,  a  supreme 
and  undeserved  suffering  fell.  Monsieur  Mirman 
makes  here  the  first  official  statement  of  the  war  on 
the  subject  of  reprisals.  There  is  something  touch- 
ing in  his  desire  for  our  understanding.  France 
hoped  we  would  see  her  agony  with  the  eyes  she 
once  turned  toward  us.  She  still  hopes  on,  and  sends 
this  message  of  her  representative : 

"I  wish  you  to  understand  in  what  spirit  we  began 
the  war  in  France,  and  especially  in  this  district.  It 
was  our  intention  to  follow  the  rules  of  what  you 
call  in  English  'Fair  Play.'  We  wished  to  carry  on 
the  war  as  we  had  carried  on  other  wars,  to  our  risk 


266    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  peril,  with  all  the  loyalties  of  fighting  men. 
But  from  the  start  we  have  been  faced  with  men 
whom  we  are  unable  to  consider  as  soldiers,  who 
have  conducted  themselves  in  a  section  of  our  De- 
partment as  veritable  outlaws.  You  are  not  going, 
unfortunately,  to  Nomeny,  which  is  a  town  of  this 
Department  where  the  Germans  have  committed 
the  worst  of  their  atrocities.  At  least  you  will  go 
to  Gerbeviller,  where  they  burned  the  houses,  one 
by  one,  and  put  to  death  old  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren. 

"Mention  is  often  made  of  these  two  townships 
where  the  inhabitants  suffered  the  most  severely 
from  the  invasion  of  the  enemy,  but  in  many  other 
townships,  a  long  list,  the  Germans  acted  in  the 
same  way.  They  burned  the  streets,  they  killed  men, 
women  and  children  without  cause.  Always  they 
gave  the  pretext,  to  excuse  themselves,  that  the 
civilian  population  had  fired  on  them.  On  that 
point,  I  bring  you  my  personal  testimony:  I  say  to 
you  on  my  honor  that  this  German  allegation  is  ab- 
solutely false. 

"At  my  request  I  was  appointed  the  Prefect  of 
Meurthe-et-Moselle  on  August  9,  1914.  In  all  the 
townships  of  this  Department,  on  my  arrival,  I  re- 
quested in  the  most  urgent  terms  that  the  inhabitants 
should  not  give  way  to  restlessness,  and  should  not 
resort  to  a  single  act  which  I  called  an  unruly  act, 


MIRMAN  AND  "MES  ENFANTS"    267 

by  themselves  taking  direct  part  in  the  war.  I  made 
those  requests  in  perfect  agreement  with  all  the  popu- 
lation, approved  by  the  most  ardent  patriots.  I  held 
inquiries,  frequent  and  detailed,  to  find  out  if  my 
instructions  had  been  respected.  Not  once  have  I 
been  able  to  establish  the  fact  that  a  civilian  fired 
on  the  Germans. 

"If  isolated  instances  of  that  sort  did  take  place, 
they  could  not  be  admitted  as  justifying  the  total 
of  systematic  crimes  committed  by  the  Germans,  but 
I  have  not  been  able  to  lay  hold  of  a  single  instance. 

"I  will  cite  two  incidents  which  will  mark  out 
for  you,  in  a  clear-cut  way,  what  I  believe  to  be  "the 
French  method." 

"At  the  beginning  of  the  war  a  German  aviator 
threw  bombs  on  a  town  near  Nancy.  The  Mayor, 
revolted,  went  to  the  town-hall,  where  the  arms  had 
been  deposited,  and  took  a  hunting  rifle  and  fired 
at  the  aviator.  It  is  clear  that  the  German  aviator 
was  committing  a  crime  contrary  to  all  the  laws  of 
war,  but  I  held  that  the  Mayor  of  that  town,  by 
himself  firing  in  that  way  on  a  criminal,  was  dis- 
obeying the  laws  of  his  country.  I  proceeded  to  dis- 
ciplinary measures  against  the  Mayor:  I  suspended 
him  from  office  for  many  weeks. 

"Another  incident:  In  the  first  days  of  August, 
1914,  the  Germans  entering  Badonviller,  exasper- 
ated perhaps  by  the  resistance  which  our  soldiers  of 


268    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  rear-guard  gave  them,  or  simply  wishing  to  leave 
a  token  of  their  Kultur,  and  to  terrorize  the  popu- 
lation, burned  part  of  the  village,  and  fired  on  the 
inhabitants  as  if  they  were  rabbits. 

"I  arrived  the  next  day.  The  French  troops  had 
reentered  Badonviller  and  had  taken  some  German 
soldiers  prisoner.  The  prisoners  were  being  led  to 
the  town-hall.  The  fires  had  not  yet  been  put  out, 
and  the  women  whom  the  Germans  had  murdered 
were  still  unburied. 

"The  Mayor  had  seen  the  terrible  spectacle.  He 
had  seen  his  young  wife  murdered  at  his  doorstep 
in  front  of  her  little  children.  He  himself  had  suf- 
fered violence.  But  he  had  stuck  to  his  post,  and 
had  continued  to  carry  on  the  affairs  of  his  town. 
While  the  prisoners  were  being  led  along  the  in- 
habitants of  Badonviller,  who  had  seen  these  crimes, 
recognized  the  prisoners  and  surrounded  them, 
threatening  them  and  crying  out  against  them.  The 
Mayor  threw  himself  resolutely  between  the  pris- 
oners and  his  people.  This  Mayor,  who  had  had 
his  own  flesh  and  blood  murdered  and  his  heart  torn, 
declared  with  emphasis  that  those  prisoners,  no  mat- 
ter what  crimes  they  had  committed,  were  protected 
by  the  law,  and  that  it  was  not  permitted  to  any 
civilian  to  touch  a  hair  of  their  head. 

"Because  he  had  called  to  order  some  of  his  peo- 
ple whose  anger  was  natural  enough,  because  he  had 


MIRMAN  AND  "MES  ENFANTS"    269 

respected  the  law  under  trying  conditions,  I  asked 
that  this  Mayor  should  be  decorated,  and  the  French 
Government  decreed  for  him  the  cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor.  He  was  rewarded  in  this  way,  not  for 
having  carried  out  criminal  violence  according  to 
the  German  method,  but  on  the  contrary  for  pre- 
venting, by  coolness  and  force  of  will,  reprisals  made 
against  enemy  prisoners. 

"By  these  examples,  and  I  could  cite  many  others, 
you  will  be  able  to  estimate  the  ideas  with  which 
the  French  began  the  war. 

"The  French  in  more  than  one  instance  have  run 
against,  not  armies,  but  veritable  bands  organized 
for  crime.  I  say  'organized,'  and  that  is  the  signifi- 
cant fact.  In  a  war  when  individual  accidental  ex- 
cesses are  committed,  tragic  situations,  to  be  sure, 
arise,  but  we  ought  not  to  conclude  that  we  have 
found  ourselves  face  to  face  with  a  general  organiza- 
tion of  cruelty  and  destruction. 

"In  the  townships  of  which  I  am  speaking,  it  is 
by  the  order  of  the  heads  that  the  crimes  have  been 
committed.  They  are  not  the  crimes  of  individuals : 
there  has  been  a  genuine  organization  of  murder.  It 
is  that  which  will  be  thrown  into  the  light  by  the 
testimony  which  you  will  gather — ^notably  at  Gerbe- 
viller. 

"Then  I  call  your  attention  to  what  the  city  of 


270    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Nancy  has  suffered  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  hu- 
manity since  the  beginning  of  the  war. 

"From  the  beginning  of  August,  1914,  Nancy  has 
been  empty  of  troops,  the  numerous  barracks  have 
been  converted  into  hospitals;  some  were  used  as 
asylums  for  our  refugees.  Nothing  remained  at 
Nancy,  nothing  has  come  since  then.  You  won't 
find  at  the  present  time  a  single  cannon,  a  single 
depot  of  ammunition,  no  fortification,  no  military 
work.  For  a  garrison  there  are  some  dozens  of  old 
territorials,  barely  sufficient  in  number  to  keep  order. 

"On  the  Fourth  of  September  an  enemy  aviator 
threw  bombs  on  the  square  where  the  Cathedral 
stands,  killing  a  little  girl  and  an  old  man. 

"A  few  days  later,  knowing  that  they  were  not 
going  to  be  able  to  enter  Nancy,  furious  at  the 
thought  that  they  would  soon  be  forced  to  retire 
and  that  they  must  give  up  their  cherished  dreams, 
in  the  night  of  the  ninth  and  tenth  of  September, 
those  unfortunate  men  advanced  two  pieces  of  artil- 
lery under  cover  of  a  storm,  bombarded  our  peace- 
ful city,  and  ripped  to  pieces  houses  in  various  quar- 
ters of  the  town,  murdering  women  and  children. 

"A  military  point  to  that  bombardment'?  I  chal- 
lenge any  one  to  state  it.  Act  of  cruelty,  simply, 
an  act  of  outlawry. 

"Ever  since  then  acts  against  Nancy  are  multi- 
plied.   The  list  is  long  of  victims  stricken  in  Nancy 


MIRMAN  AND  "MES  ENFANTS"    271 

by  the  bombs  of  Zeppelins,  of  aeroplanes,  and  by 
the  shells  of  the  380,  shot  for  now  many  months 
by  a  long-range  gun.  All  the  victims  are  civilians, 
mostly  women  and  children.  I  repeat  to  you  that 
the  city  of  Nancy  is  empty  of  soldiers. 

"And  what  I  say  of  Nancy  is  true  of  the  other 
towns,  particularly  at  Luneville,  where  a  bomb  fall- 
ing in  the  full  market  killed  45  persons,  of  whom 
40  were  women. 

"Adding  childishness  to  violence,  with  a  craving 
for  the  histrionic,  obsessed  by  the  desire  to  strike  the 
imagination  (or  let  us  say  more  simply  having  the 
souls  of  'cabotins'),  these  outlaws  have  conceived 
the  bombardment  of  Nancy  by  a  380  cannon  on 
the  first  of  January — New  Year's,  the  day  of  gifts — 
and  on  the  first  of  July.  In  that  New  Year  bom- 
bardment they  so  arranged  it  that  the  first  shell  fell 
on  Nancy  at  the  last  stroke  of  midnight.  I  will  show 
the  little  furnished  house  which  that  shell  crushed, 
killing  six  persons,  of  whom  four  were  women. 

"For  a  long  while  we  were  content  to  suffer  those 
crimes,  protesting  in  the  name  of  law.  We  did  not 
wish  to  defend  ourselves.  We  shrink  from  the 
thought  of  reprisals.  But  public  opinion  ended  by 
forcing  the  hand  of  the  Government.  Unanimously 
the  nation  has  demanded  that,  each  time  an  unde- 
fended French  town  is  bombarded  by  the  Germans 
by  aeroplane,  Zeppelin  or  cannon,  a  reply  shall  be 


272    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

made  to  that  violation  of  the  laws  of  war  and  of  the 
rights  of  humanity  by  the  bombardment  of  a  Ger- 
man town. 

"I  wish  to  say  to  you,  and  I  beg  you  to  make  it 
known  to  your  noble  nation:  it  is  not  with  serenity 
that  we  see  our  French  soldiers  do  that  work.  It 
is  with  profound  sadness  that  we  resign  ourselves 
to  those  reprisals.  Those  methods  of  defense  are 
imposed  upon  us.  Since  all  considerations  of  hu- 
manity are  to-day  alien  to  the  German  soul,  we  are 
reduced  for  the  protection  of  our  wives  and  our  chil- 
dren to  the  policy  of  reprisals  and  to  the  assassina- 
tion in  our  turn  of  the  children  and  the  women  in 
Germany.  The  Germans  have  vociferously  rejoiced 
in  the  crimes  committed  by  their  soldiers ;  they  have 
made  an  illumination  for  the  day  of  the  husitania 
crime;  they  have  delighted  in  the  thought  that  on 
the  first  of  January  the  children  of  Nancy  received, 
as  New  Year's  presents,  shells  from  a  380  cannon. 
The  acts  of  reprisal  to  which  we  are  forced  do  not 
rejoice  us  in  the  least;  they  sadden  us.  We  speak 
of  them  with  soberness.  And  we  have  here  reason 
for  hating  Kultur  all  the  more.  We  French  hate 
the  Germans  less  for  the  crimes  which  they  have 
committed  on  us  than  for  the  acts  of  violence  con- 
trary to  the  laws  of  war  which  they  have  forced  us 
to  commit  in  our  turn,  and  for  the  reprisals  on  their 
children  and  their  women. 


MIRMAN  AND  "MES  ENFANTS"    273 

"I  thank  you  for  having  come  here.  You  will 
look  about  you,  you  will  ask  questions,  you  will 
easily  see  the  truth.  That  truth  you  will  make 
known  to  your  great  and  free  nation.  We  shall 
await  with  confidence  the  judgment  of  its  con- 
science." 


IX 


AN  APPEAL  TO  THE  SMALLER  AMERICAN  COMMUNI- 
TIES 

URNED  villages  are  like  ruins  of  an  ancient 
civilization.  To  wander  through  them  was 
as  if  I  were  stepping  among  the  bones  of  a 
dead  age.  Only  the  green  fields  that  flowed  up  to 
the  wrecked  cottages  and  the  handful  of  sober-faced 
peasants — only  these  were  living  in  that  belt  of 
death  that  cuts  across  the  face  of  France,  like  the 
scar  from  a  whip  on  a  prisoner's  cheek.  French  soil 
is  sacred  to  a  Frenchman.  I  saw  a  little  shop  with 
pottery  and  earthenware  in  the  window:  vases,  and 
jars,  and  toilet  cases.    The  sign  read: 

"La  terre  de  nos  Gres — c'est  la  meme  terre  que 
defendent  nos  soldats  dans  les  tranchees." 

("The  earth  which  made  these  wares  is  the  same 
earth  which  our  soldiers  defend  in  the  trenches,") 

I  want  the  people  at  home  to  understand  this  war. 
So  I  am  telling  of  it  in  terms  that  are  homely.  I 
asked  the  authorities  to  let  me  wander  through  the 
villages  and  talk  with  the  inhabitants.  What  a  vil- 
lage suffers,  what  a  storekeeper  suffers,  will  mean 

274 


AN  APPEAL  TO  COMMUNITIES     275 

something  to  my  friends  in  Iowa  and  Connecticut. 
Talk  of  artillery  duels  with  big  guns  and  bayonet 
charges  through  barbed  wire  falls  strangely  on  peace- 
ful ears.  But  what  a  druggist's  wife  has  seen,  what 
a  school-teacher  tells,  will  come  home  to  Americans 
in  Eliot,  Maine,  and  down  the  Mississippi  Valley. 
What  one  cares  very  much  to  reach  is  the  solid  silent 
public  opinion  of  the  smaller  cities,  the  towns  and 
villages.  The  local  storekeeper,  the  village  doctor, 
the  farmer,  these  are  the  men  who  make  the  real 
America — the  America  which  responds  slowly  but 
irresistibly  to  a  sound  presentation  of  facts.  The 
alert  newspaper  editor,  the  hustling  real-estate  man, 
the  booster  for  a  better-planned  town,  these  citizens 
shape  our  public  opinion.  If  once  our  loyal  Middle 
Westerners  know  the  wrong  that  has  been  done  peo- 
ple just  like  themselves,  they  will  resent  it  as  each 
of  us  resents  it  that  has  seen  it.  This  is  no  dim 
distant  thing.  This  is  a  piece  of  cold-planned  in- 
justice by  murder  and  fire  done  to  our  friends  in  the 
sister  republic.  I  should  like  a  representative  com- 
mittee from  South  Norwalk,  Conn.,  Emporia,  Kan- 
sas, and  Sherman,  Texas,  to  see  Gerbeviller  as  I 
have  seen  it,  to  walk  past  its  475  burned  houses,  to 
talk  with  its  impoverished  but  spirited  residents.  I 
should  like  them  to  catch  the  spirit  of  Sermaize, 
building  its  fresh  little  red-brick  homes  out  of  the 
rubble  of  the  wrecked  place. 


276    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

I  had  thought  that  I  had  some  slight  idea  of 
French  spirit.  I  had  thought  that  five  months  with 
their  soldiers  at  Melle,  Dixmude,  and  Nieuport  had 
given  me  a  hint  of  France  in  her  hour  of  greatness. 
But  I  found  that  not  even  the  cheery  first  line  men, 
not  even  the  democratic  officers,  are  the  best  of 
France.  They  are  lovable  and  wonderful.  But  the 
choicest  persons  in  France  are  the  women  in  the 
devastated  districts.  They  can  make  or  break 
morale.  What  the  people  back  of  the  trenches  are 
feeling,  the  talk  that  they  make  in  the  village  inn — 
these  are  the  decisive  factors  that  give  heart  to  an 
army  or  that  crumble  its  resistance.  No  govern- 
ment, no  military  staff  can  continue  an  unpopular 
war.  But  by  these  people  who  have  lost  their  goods 
by  fire,  and  their  relatives  by  assassination,  the  spirit 
of  France  is  reinforced.  The  war  is  safe  in  their 
hands. 

The  heaviest  of  all  the  charges  that  rests  against 
Germany  is  that  of  preparedness  in  equipment  for 
incendiary  destruction.  They  had  not  only  prepared 
an  army  for  fighting  the  enemy  troops  with  rifle, 
machine-gun  and  howitzer.  They  had  supplied  that 
army  with  a  full  set  of  incendiary  material  for  mak- 
ing war  on  non-combatants.  Immediately  on  cross- 
ing the  frontier,  they  laid  waste  peaceful  villages  by 
fire.  And  that  wholesale  burning  was  not  accom- 
plished by  extemporized  means.    It  was  do^e  by  in- 


AN  APPEAL  TO  COMMUNITIES     277 

struments  "made  in  Germany"  before  the  war,  in- 
struments of  no  value  for  battle,  but  only  for  prop- 
erty destruction,  house  by  house.  Their  manufac- 
ture and  distribution  to  that  first  German  army  of 
invasion  show  the  premeditation  of  the  destruction 
visited  on  the  invaded  country.  On  his  arm  the 
soldier  carried  a  rifle,  in  his  sack  the  stuff  for  fires. 
He  marched  against  troops  and  against  non-com- 
batants. His  war  was  a  war  of  extermination.  The 
army  carried  a  chemical  mixture  which  caught  fire 
on  exposure  to  the  air,  by  being  broken  open;  an- 
other chemical  which  fired  up  from  a  charge  of  pow- 
der; incendiary  bombs  which  spread  flames  when 
exploded;  pellets  like  lozenges  which  were  charged 
with  powders,  and  which  slipped  easily  into  the  bag. 
These  were  thrown  by  the  handful  into  the  house, 
after  being  started  by  match  or  the  gun.  When  the 
Germans  came  to  a  village,  where  they  wished  to 
spread  terror,  they  burned  it  house  by  house.  I  have 
seen  their  chalk-writing  on  the  doors  of  unburned 
houses.  One  of  their  phrases  which  they  scribbled 
on  those  friendly  doors  was  "Nicht  anziinden." 
Now  "anziinden"  does  not  mean  simply  "Do  not 
bum."  It  means  "Do  not  burn  with  incendiary 
methods."  Wherever  a  spy  lived,  or  a  peasant  inn- 
keeper friendly  with  drinks,  or  wherever  there  was 
a  house  which  an  officer  chose  for  his  night's  rest, 
there  the  Germans  wrote  the  phrase  that  saved  the 


278    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

house.  The  other  houses  to  right  and  left  were 
"burned  with  incendiary  methods."  That  phrase  is 
as  revealing  as  if  in  a  village  where  there  were  dead 
bodies  of  children  with  bayonet  wounds  upon  them, 
you  discovered  one  child  walking  around  with  a  tag 
hung  round  her  neck  reading  "Do  not  murder  this 
little  girl  by  bayonet." 

That  military  hierarchy  which  extends  from  the 
sergeant  to  the  Emperor,  controlling  every  male  in 
Germany,  came  down  upon  Belgium  and  France, 
prepared  to  crush,  not  alone  the  military  power,  but 
every  spiritual  resource  of  those  nations.  I  have 
a  bag  of  German  incendiary  pastilles  given  me  by 
Jules  Gaxotte,  Mayor  of  Revigny.  On  one  side  is 
inked 

6 


0.25. 
On  the  other  side 

6.  10.10.111. 


R.12/1, 
indicating  the  company  and  the  regiment  and  the 
division.  The  pellets  are  square,  the  size  of  a  finger- 
nail. They  bum  with  intensity,  like  a  Fourth  of 
July  torch.  That  little  bag  has  enough  bits  of  lively 
flame  in  it,  to  burn  an  ancient  church  and  destroy  a 
village  of  homes.     Packets  like  it  have  seared  the 


AN  APPEAL  TO  COMMUNITIES     279 

northern  provinces  of  France.  Not  one  of  those 
millions  of  pellets  that  came  down  from  Germany- 
was  used  against  a  soldier.  Not  one  was  used 
against  a  military  defense.  All  were  used  against 
public  buildings  and  homes.  All  were  used  against 
non-combatants,  old  men,  women  and  children.  The 
clever  chemist  had  cooperated  with  the  General  Staff 
in  perfecting  a  novel  warfare.  The  admirable  or- 
ganization had  equipped  its  men  for  the  new  task 
of  a  soldier.  In  their  haste  the  Germans  left  these 
pellets  everywhere  along  the  route.  The  Mayor  of 
Revigny  has  a  collection.  So  has  the  Mayor  of 
Clermont.  Monsieur  Georges  Payelle,  premier  presi- 
dent de  la  Cour  des  Comptes,  and  head  of  the  French 
Government  Inquiry,  has  a  still  larger  collection. 
These  three  gentlemen  have  not  told  me,  but  have 
shown  me  this  evidence.  The  purpose  of  the  Ger- 
man military  can  be  reconstructed  from  that  one 
little  bag  which  I  hold. 

But  not  only  have  the  Germans  dropped  their 
scraps  of  evidence  as  they  went  along,  as  if  they 
were  playing  hare-and-hounds.  They  have  put  into 
words  what  they  mean.  The  German  War  Book, 
issued  to  officers,  outlines  their  new  enlarged  war- 
fare. 

Madame  Dehan  of  Gerbeviller  said  to  me: 
"A  high  officer  arrived  this  same  day  (when  she 
was  prisoner)  and  said : 


28o    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"  'It  is  necessary  to  put  to  death  the  people  here. 
They  must  be  shot.    This  nation  must  disappear.'  " 

Monsieur  Guilley  of  Nomeny  told  me  how 
Charles  Michel,  a  boy  of  seventeen,  was  killed.  He 
said:  "A  patrol  of  scouts,  composed  of  six  Bavar- 
ians, said:  'We  are  going  down  there  to  kill,  yes, 
kill  all  the  people  of  Nomeny.' 

"Arrived  at  Nomeny,  they  asked  where  the  farm 
was.  They  then  came  along  the  side  of  the  farm 
where  there  was  a  little  door.  Three  entered  there, 
the  other  three  came  around  by  the  big  door.  We 
were  ready  for  supper,  sitting  around  a  table.  We 
heard  blows  on  blows  of  the  bayonets  before  the 
doors,  with  cries  and  exclamations  in  German.  They 
came  into  the  place  where  we  were  sitting  to  eat, 
and  placed  themselves  facing  us,  with  nothing  to 
say.  They  took  all  that  they  wanted  from  the  table. 
Five  of  them  left,  going  by  a  way  in  front  of  the 
farm.  The  sixth  stayed  there,  ruminating  and 
thinking.  I  believed  that  he  was  meditating  to  him- 
self a  crime,  but  I  thought  to  myself,  'They  wouldn't 
kill  a  man  as  they  would  kill  a  rabbit.' 

"We  went  into  the  kitchen.  The  man  was  always 
there.  I  closed  the  door.  Two  men  of  my  farm 
were  eating  in  the  kitchen.  Now,  from  the  kitchen 
leading  into  the  stable  there  was  a  door.  The  little 
Michel  went  out  by  this  door.  He  did  not  see  the 
German  who  was  there.    The  soldier  fired  at  him. 


AN  APPEAL  TO  COMMUNITIES     281 

I  heard  the  rifle  shot  go.  Then  I  saw  the  man  fol- 
lowing the  same  way  that  the  others  had  taken,  to 
rejoin  them  at  a  trot." 

"How  long  did  he  remain  there  thinking  before 
he  accomplished  his  crime"?"  we  asked. 

"Plenty  long,  a  good  quarter  of  an  hour.  He  was 
a  Bavarian,  big  and  strong." 

I  find  that  strange  racial  brooding  and  melancholy 
in  the  diary  of  a  sub-ofRcer  of  the  Landwehr.  On 
September  3,  1914,  he  writes: 

"It  is  well  enough  that  Germany  has  the  advan- 
tage everywhere  up  to  the  present;  I  am  not  able 
to  conquer  a  singular  impression,  a  presentiment  that, 
in  spite  of  all  that,  the  end  will  be  bad." 

In  his  case  it  is  accompanied  by  horror  at  the 
wrong-doing  of  his  comrades,  a  noble  pity  for  wasted 
France.  But  in  others,  that  brooding  turned  to  sud- 
den cruelty.  Any  act,  however  savage,  is  a  relief 
from  that  dark  inner  burden. 

Madame  Danger  of  Gondrecourt-Aix  (Meuse) 
said  to  me: 

"On  the  night  of  Christmas,  1914,  with  fixed 
bayonets  they  came  to  get  us  to  dance  with  them — 
the  dances  were  entirely  unseemly.  Ten  persons 
were  forced  out  to  dance.  We  danced  from  five  in 
the  evening  till  half  past  six." 

"Were  they  soldiers  or  officers?" 

"Only  officers;  and  when  they  were  sufficiently 


282    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

drunk,  we  made  the  most  of  that  advantage  to  save 
ourselves." 

It  was  Christmas  night — the  time  to  dance.  So 
they  chose  partners,  by  the  compulsion  of  the  bayo- 
net, with  the  women  of  an  invaded  and  outraged 
race.  The  same  rich,  childlike  sentiment  floods  their 
eyes  with  tears  at  thought  of  the  mother  at  home. 
Cruel,  sentimental,  melancholy,  methodical,  they  are 
a  race  that  needs  wise  leadership.  And  they  have 
not  received  that.  They  have  been  led  by  men  who 
do  not  believe  in  them.  Every  evil  trait  has  been 
played  upon,  to  the  betrayal  of  the  simple  rather 
primitive  personality,  which  in  other  hands  would 
have  gone  gently  all  its  days.  But  the  homely  good- 
ness has  been  stultified,  and  we  have  a  race,  of  our 
own  stock,  behaving  like  savages  under  the  cool 
guidance  of  its  masters. 

The  next  piece  of  testimony  was  given  me  by  a 
woman  who  was  within  a  few  days  of  giving  birth 
to  a  child  by  a  German  father.  I  withhold  her  name 
and  the  name  of  her  village. 

"I  was  maltreated  by  them.  Monsieur.  They 
abused  me.  Last  year  in  the  month  of  October, 
1915,  they  arrived.  I  was  learning  how  to  take  care 
of  the  cattle,  to  help  my  father,  who  already  had 
enough  with  what  the  Germans  required  him  to  do 
outside  in  the  fields.  My  father  had  not  returned; 
I  was  entirely  alone.     I  was  in  the  bottom  of  the 


AN  APPEAL  TO  COMMUNITIES     283 

barn;  my  children  were  in  the  house  with  my  mother. 
They  were  upon  me;  I  did  not  see  them.  They 
threw  me  down  and  held  me.  They  were  the  sol- 
diers who  lodged  with  my  parents.  I  cried  out  three 
or  four  times  for  some  one  to  come,  but  it  was  fin- 
ished.   I  got  up  from  the  straw." 

"Have  you  told  your  parents  or  any  one?" 

"No.  Never  to  a  person,  Monsieur.  I  am  too 
much  ashamed.  But  I  always  think  of  it.  My  eldest 
child  is  eleven  years  old,  the  next  seven  years,  the 
third  six  years,  and  the  last  I  have  had  since  the 
war.  The  one  I  wait  for  now,  of  course,  I  do  not 
count  on  bringing  up." 

Monsieur  Mirman,  the  Prefect,  replied : 

"Since  you  must  have  him,  you  will  tell  me  at 
the  time,  so  that  I  may  take  action  and  give  you 
assistance." 

Through  the  courtesy  of  Mrs.  Charles  Prince,  I 
spent  an  afternoon  with  a  French  nurse,  Marie  Lou- 
ise Vincent,  of  Launois,  in  the  Ardenne. 

The  Germans  came.  She  was  on  the  road,  one 
hundred  yards  away,  when  she  saw  this : 

"I  saw  an  old  French  beggar,  whom  everybody 
knew,  hobbling  down  the  road.  He  passed  through 
our  village  every  week.  He  was  called  "Pere  Noel" 
(Father  Christmas)  because  of  his  big  beard.  He 
was  seventy-five  years  old.  It  was  the  29th  of  Au- 
gust, about  8  o'clock  in  the  morning.     Officers  or- 


284    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

dered  twelve  men  to  step  out  from  the  ranks.  They 
took  the  old  man  and  tied  him  to  a  tree.  An  officer 
ordered  the  men  to  shoot.  One  or  two  of  the  sous- 
officers  fired  when  the  men  fired.  So  they  shot  Pere 
Noel.  The  villagers  found  thirteen  bullet  holes  in 
him. 

''That  day  the  soldiers  burned  the  first  four  houses 
of  our  village.  They  made  a  big  blaze,  and  if  the 
wind  had  turned  the  whole  village  would  have 
burned. 

"The  commander  came  to  our  hospital.  He  pat- 
ted me  on  the  cheek  and  said  he  had  a  big  daughter 
at  home  like  me,  and  she  was  in  Red  Cross  work 
like  me." 

"He  said  he  was  very  thirsty.  I  gave  him  three 
glasses  of  water.  I  had  good  wine  in  the  cellar,  but 
not  for  him.  He  talked  with  the  doctor  and  me. 
He  asked  for  the  Burgomaster.  We  said  he  had 
gone  away.  He  asked  for  those  next  in  authority 
to  the  Burgomaster.    We  said  they  had  gone  away. 

"  'Why?  Why?'  asked  the  commander.  'The 
Belgians  have  told  you  we  are  barbarians,  that  is 
why.  We  have  done  things  a  little  regrettable,  but 
we  were  forced  to  it  by  the  Belgians.  The  colonel 
whose  place  I  took  was  killed  by  a  little  girl,  four- 
teen years  old.  She  fired  at  him  point-blank.  We 
shot  the  girl  and  burned  the  village.' 

"Then  the  French  doctor  with  me  asked  the  com- 


{ 


AN  APPEAL  TO  COMMUNITIES     285 

mander  why  his  men  had  burned  the  four  farm- 
houses. They  were  making  a  bright  blaze  with  their 
barns  of  hay.    We  could  see  it. 

"  'Why,  that — that's  nothing,'  said  the  com- 
mander.    ('Ce  n'est  rien.     C'est  tout  petit  peu.') 

"A  sous-officer  came  in  to  our  hospital.  He 
showed  us  a  bottle  of  Bordeaux  which  he  had  taken 
from  the  cellar  of  one  of  our  houses.    He  said : 

"  'I  know  it  is  good  wine.  I  sold  it  myself  to  the 
woman  a  couple  of  months  ago.  I  thought  she 
wouldn't  have  had  time  to  drink  it  all  up.' 

"  'You  know  France*?'  asked  the  doctor. 

"  'I  know  it  better  than  many  Frenchmen,'  re- 
plied the  officer.  'For  eight  years  I  have  been  a  wine 
agent  in  the  Marne  district.' 

"'At  Rheims? 

"  'At  Rheims.' 

"  'For  the  house  of  Pommery?' 

"  'No,  no.    Not  that  house.' 

"After  the  fighting  of  August  27  and  28,  some 
of  the  peasants  began  to  come  back  to  their  homes. 
Near  us  at  the  little  village  of  Thin-le-Moutier  a 
few  returned.  Nine  old  men  and  boys  came  back 
on  the  morning  of  the  29th.  The  Germans  put  them 
against  a  wall  and  shot  them.  I  saw  traces  of  blood 
on  the  wall  and  bullet  marks.  The  youngest  boy 
was  too  frightened  to  stand  quietly  against  the  wall. 
He  struggled.     So  they  tied  him  to  a  signpost.     I 


286    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

saw  traces  of  his  blood  on  the  post.  The  old 
sacristan  of  the  village  church  was  forced  to  witness 
the  shooting.  The  bodies  were  guarded  by  a  senti- 
nel for  three  days.  On  the  third  day,  August  31, 
a  German  officer  ordered  an  old  man  and  his  wife, 
of  the  place,  to  bring  a  cart.  They  carried  the  bod- 
ies to  the  graveyard.  The  officer  had  the  two  old 
people  dig  one  deep  hole.  The  old  man  asked  per- 
mission to  take  out  the  bodies,  one  by  one.  But  the 
officer  had  the  cart  upturned,  and  the  bodies,  all  to- 
gether, dumped  into  the  hole. 

A  few  days  later  a  poor  woman  came  along  the 
road,  asking  every  one  she  met  if  anybody  had  seen 
her  boys.  They  were  among  the  nine  that  had  been 
shot. 

"A  sous-officer,  a  Jew  named  Goldstein,  a  second 
lieutenant,  came  to  our  hospital.  While  our  French 
doctor  was  held  downstairs  Lieutenant  Goldstein 
took  out  the  medical  notes  about  the  cases  from  the 
pocket  of  the  doctor's  military  coat.  I  protested.  I 
said  that  it  was  not  permitted  by  international  law. 

"  'What  do  you  make  of  the  convention  of 
Geneva*?'  I  asked  him. 

"  'Ah,  I  laugh  at  it,'  he  answered.  "He  was  a 
professor  of  philosophy  at  Darmstadt." 

With  all  the  methodical  work  of  murder  and  de- 
struction the  figure  of  the  officer  in  command  is  al- 
ways in  the  foreground. 


AN  APPEAL  TO  COMMUNITIES     287 

The  Cure  of  Gcrbeviller  said  to  me : 

"They  ordered  me  to  go  on  my  knees  before  the 
major.  As  I  did  not  go  down  on  the  ground,  an 
officer,  who  was  there,  quickly  gave  me  a  blow  with 
the  bayonet  in  the  groin. 

"  'Your  parishioners  are  the  traitors,  the  assassins ; 
they  have  fired  on  our  soldiers  with  rifles;  they  are 
going  to  get  fire,  all  of  your  people,'  the  major  said 
to  me. 

"I  replied,  No,  that  was  not  possible,  that  at  Ger- 
beviller  there  were  only  old  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren. 

"  'No,  I  have  seen  them;  the  civilians  have  fired. 
Without  doubt,  it  is  not  you  who  have  fired,  but  it 
is  you  who  have  organized  the  resistance;  it  is  you 
who  have  excited  the  patriotism  of  your  parishioners, 
above  all,  among  your  young  men.  Why  have  you 
taught  your  young  men  the  use  of  arms'?' 

"Without  giving  me  time  to  respond,  they  led 
me  away.  They  took  me  to  the  middle  of  the  street 
in  front  of  my  house,  with  five  of  my  poor  old  ones. 
A  soldier  was  going  to  find  a  tent  cord  and  tie  us 
all  together.  They  did  not  permit  me  to  go  into 
my  house.  They  brought  out  afterwards  beiore  me 
five  other  of  my  parishioners,  as  well  as  three  little 
chasseurs  a  pied  that  they  were  going  to  make  pris- 
oners.   We  waited  there  an  hour.    I  saw  passing  a 


288    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

group  of  five  of  my  people  tied.  I  thought:  What 
is  going  to  happen  to  them  ? 

''At  that  moment  a  captain  on  horseback  arrived 
in  front  of  us,  reined  up  his  horse  in  excitement, 
pulled  his  foot  out  of  the  stirrup  and  kicked  our 
chasseurs  in  the  groin.  One  of  my  people  who  was 
with  me  cried  out :    'Oh,  the  pigs  .  .  . '  " 

The  Great  German  Staff  believe  these  things  are 
buried  deep  in  burned  cottages  and  village  graves. 
They  believe  an  early  peace  will  wipe  out  the 
memory  of  that  insolence.  They  have  forgotten  the 
thousands  of  eye-witnesses,  of  whom  I  have  met 
some  dozens,  and  of  whom  I  am  one.  They  cannot 
kill  us  who  live  to  tell  what  we  have  seen  them  do. 
They  cannot  destroy  a  thousand  diaries  of  German 
soldiers  that  tell  the  abominations  they  committed. 
This  record  will  become  a  part  of  history.  They 
thought  to  wipe  out  their  cruelty  in  success.  But 
the  names  of  their  victims  are  known,  and  the  cir- 
cumstance of  their  death.  Not  in  China  alone  have 
they  made  their  face  a  horror  for  a  thousand  years, 
but  wherever  there  is  respect  for  weakness  and  pity 
for  little  children. 


X 


THE    EVIDENCE 


I  HAVE  told  in  these  chapters  of  the  peasants  of 
Northern  France,  and  I  have  given  their  life 
in  war  in  their  own  words.  I  want  to  tell  here 
how  this  material  was  gathered,  because  the  power 
of  its  appeal  rests  on  the  recognition  of  its  accuracy. 
A  small  part  of  the  testimony  I  followed  in  long 
hand  as  it  was  spoken.  The  rest,  three-quarters  of 
the  total  testimony,  was  taken  down  in  short-hand 
by  one  or  the  other  of  two  stenographers.  I  have 
used  about  one-fifth  of  the  collected  material. 

My  companions  were  the  well-known  American 
writers,  Will  Irwin  and  Herbert  Corey.  Other  com- 
panions have  been  Lieutenant  Louis  Madelin,  the 
distinguished  historian,  whose  work  on  the  French 
Revolution  was  crowned  by  the  French  Academy; 
Lieutenant  Jules  Basdevant,  Professor  of  Interna- 
tional Law  at  the  University  of  Grenoble;  Lieuten- 
ant Monod,  once  of  Columbia  University,  and  al- 
ways a  friend  of  our  country;  Captain  Callet,  Pro- 
fessor of  Geography  at  Saint-Cyr,  now  of  the  Etat 

289 


290    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Major  of  the  Third  Army;  and  the  Baron  de  la 
Chaise.  I  don't  wish  to  imply  that  the  French  Army 
is  exclusively  composed  of  scholarly  gentlemen  with 
an  established  position  in  the  world  of  letters.  But 
it  happened  to  be  the  good  pleasure  of  the  French 
Minister  of  War  and  of  the  Foreign  Office  to  make 
of  our  trips  a  delightful  social  experience.  Most 
important,  these  men  are  worthy  witnesses  of  the 
things  I  have  seen,  and  the  statements  I  have  re- 
corded. 

In  the  civil  world  the  corroborating  witnesses  are 
equally  authoritative.  I  was  accompanied,  for  much 
of  the  territory  visited,  by  Leon  Mirman,  Prefect 
of  the  Department  of  Meurthe-et-Moselle. 

It  is  no  easy  job  to  penetrate  the  war  zone,  wan- 
der through  villages  at  leisure,  and  establish  rela- 
tions of  confidence  with  the  peasants.  The  whole 
experience  would  have  been  impossible  but  for  the 
help  of  Emile  Hovelaque,  This  distinguished  es- 
sayist, Director  of  Public  Education,  went  with  us 
to  all  the  villages.  The  success  of  the  visit  was 
due  to  him.  He  understands  American  public  opin- 
ion more  accurately  than  any  other  man  whom  I 
have  met  abroad.  His  human  sympathy  wins  the 
peasants.  A  woman  brought  me  her  burned  grand- 
daughter, five  years  old.  A  mother  brought  me  the 
cap  of  her  fourteen-year-old  son,  and  the  rope  with 
which  the  Germans  had  hanged  him.    A  woman  told 


THE  EVIDENCE  291 

me  how  her  mother,  seventy-eight  years  old,  was 
shot  before  her  eyes.  I  could  not  have  had  their 
stories,  I  should  not  have  been  permitted  to  enter 
these  secret  places  of  their  suffering,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  Monsieur  Hovelaque. 

The  pain  it  cost  them  to  tell  these  things  I  shall 
not  forget.  There  was  one  decent  married  woman, 
within  a  few  weeks  of  the  birth  of  her  child  by  a 
German  father,  who  had  been  outraged  by  German 
soldiers.  She  had  never  before  told  her  story,  be- 
cause of  the  shame  of  it.  She  had  not  told  her 
parents  nor  her  sister.  I  cannot  forget  that  she  told 
it  to  me.  I  cannot  rest  easily  till  her  suffering  and 
the  suffering  of  the  others  with  whom  I  have  been 
living  for  two  years  means  something  to  my  people 
at  home.  I  have  kept  all  personal  feeling  out  of 
my  record.  It  would  have  been  unforgivable  if, 
in  rendering  the  ruin  of  Lorraine,  I  had  given  way 
to  anger.  But  this  I  have  not  done.  I  have  only 
added  many  days  of  detailed  work  on  evidence  that 
was  already  conclusive.  But  this  coolness  of  re- 
porting does  not  mean  that  I  think  these  details  of 
cruelty  should  leave  us  detached  spectators. 

Let  us  remember  these  peasants  when  the  Allies 
advance  to  the  Rhine.  Let  us  remember  them  when 
Belgium  is  indemnified,  when  Alsace  and  Lorraine 
are  cut  loose,  when  the  German  military  power  is 
crushed,  when  the  individual  officers  who  ordered 


292     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

these  acts  are  singled  out  for  the  extremity  of  pun- 
ishment. We  must  teach  our  memory  not  to  forget. 
Certain  German  officers  must  be  executed.  Gen- 
eral Clauss  must  be  executed.  He  has  left  a  trail 
of  blood.  The  officers  in  command  of  the  17th 
and  the  60th  Bavarian  Regiments,  who  slaughtered 
the  women,  the  children  and  the  old  men  of  Gerbe- 
viller,  must  be  executed.  The  officers  of  the  2nd 
and  4th  Regiments  of  Bavarian  Infantry,  who  mur- 
dered fifty  men,  women  and  children  of  Nomeny, 
in  a  cold,  methodical  hate,  with  a  peculiar  care  for 
the  women,  must  be  executed. 

In  the  closing  passages  of  Browning's  "Ring  and 
the  Book,"  the  aged  prelate,  about  to  go  before  his 
maker,  is  confronted  with  the  task  of  giving  judg- 
ment. Count  Guido,  intelligent  and  powerful,  had 
murdered  Pompilia  and  her  parents.  He  did  it  by 
the  aid  of  four  assassins.  Pope  Innocent,  eighty-six 
years  old,  is  called  on  to  decide  whether  the  five 
guilty  men  shall  be  killed  for  their  evil  doings. 
Friends  urge  him  to  be  merciful.  The  aged  Pope 
replies : 

How  it  trips 

Silvery  o'er  the  tongue.    "Remit  the  death ! 

Forgive  .  .  . 

Herein  lies  the  crowning  cogency 

That  in  this  case  the  spirit  of  culture  speaks, 

Civilization  is  imperative. 

Give  thine  own  better  feeling  play  for  once ! 


THE  EVIDENCE  293 

Mercy  is  safe  and  graceful  .  .  . 
Pronounce,  then,  for  our  breath  and  patience  fail." 
"I  will,  sirs :  but  a  voice  other  than  yours 
Quickens  my  spirit.    Quis  pro  Domino? 
*Who  is  upon  the  Lord's  side  ?'  " 

So  he  orders  that  Count  Guido  and  his  henchmen 
be  killed  on  the  morrow. 

"Enough,  for  I  may  die  this  very  night 
And  how  should  I  dare  die,  this  man  let  live  ?" 


XI 


SISTER    JULIE 


THIS  is  the  story  of  Sister  Julie.  The  Ger- 
mans entered  her  village  of  Gerbeviller, 
where  she  was  head  of  the  poor-house  and 
hospital.  As  they  came  southward  through  the 
place  they  burned  every  house  on  every  street,  475 
houses.  In  a  day  they  wiped  out  seven  centuries 
of  humble  village  history.  In  her  little  street  they 
burned  Numbers  2,  4,  6,  8,  10,  and  12,  but  they 
did  not  burn  Number  14,  the  house  where  Sister 
Julie  lived.  There  they  stopped,  for  she  stopped 
them.  And  the  twenty  houses  beyond  her  hospital 
still  stand,  because  that  August  day  there  was  a 
great  woman  in  that  little  village.  They  killed 
men,  women  and  children  throughout  the  village, 
but  they  did  not  kill  the  thirteen  French  wounded 
soldiers  whom  she  was  nursing,  nor  the  five  Roman 
Catholic  sisters  whom  she  directed  as  Mother  Su- 
perior. Outside  of  a  half  dozen  generals,  she  is  per- 
haps the  most  famous  character  whom  the  war  has 
revealed,  and  one  of  the  greatest  personages  whom 

294 


The  first  woman  of  France :  the  peasant  Sister  Julie, 
wearing  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  She  held  up 
the  German  Army  and  saved  the  wounded  French  in  her 
hospital. 


SISTER  JULIE  295 

France  has  produced:  even  France  in  her  long  his- 
tory. The  last  days  of  Gerbeviller  live  in  her  story. 
I  write  her  account  word  for  word  as  she  gives  it. 
Her  recital  is  touched  with  humor  in  spite  of  the 
horror  that  lay  heaped  around  her.  She  raises  the 
poignard  of  the  German  Colonel:  you  see  it  held 
over  her  head  ready  to  strike.  By  pantomime  she 
creates  the  old  paralytic  men,  the  hobbling  women, 
the  man  who  went  "fou." 

Because  she  remained  through  the  days  of  fire  and 
blood,  and  succored  his  troops,  General  Castelnau 
cited  her  in  an  Order  of  the  Day.  The  Legion  of 
Honor  has  placed  its  scarlet  ribbon  on  the  black 
of  her  religious  dress.  The  great  of  France — the 
President  and  the  Premier,  senators  and  poets — 
have  come  to  see  her  where  she  still  lives  on  in  the 
ruins  of  the  little  village. 

Amelie  Rigard,  whose  religious  name  is  Sister 
Julie,  is  a  peasant  woman,  sixty-two  years  old,  be- 
longing to  the  Order  of  Saint  Charles  of  Nancy. 
She  is  of  the  solid  peasant  type,  with  square  chin 
and  wide  brown  eyes.  Everything  about  her  is  com- 
pact, deep-centered,  close-growing;  the  fingers  are 
stubby,  the  arms  held  closely  to  the  body,  and  when 
the  gesture  comes  it  is  a  strong  pushing  out  from 
the  frame,  as  if  pushing  away  a  weight.  When- 
ever she  puts  out  power,  she  seems  to  be  delivering 
a  straight  blow  with  the  full  weight  of  the  body. 


296    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

With  Sister  Julie  it  is  not  only  a  genius  of  simple 
goodness.  She  carries  a  native  shrewdness,  with  a 
salient  tang.  She  knows  life.  This  is  no  meek  per- 
son, easily  deceived  by  people,  thinking  every  one 
good  and  harmless.  She  reads  motives.  Power  is 
what  I  feel  in  her — direct,  sheer  power.  The  won- 
der is  not  that  she  rose  to  one  of  the  supreme  crises 
of  history,  and  did  a  work  which  has  passed  into  the 
consciousness  of  France.  The  wonder  is  that  she 
remained  hidden  in  a  country  village  for  sixty-two 
years.  Her  gift  of  language,  her  strength  of  na- 
ture, had  vitality  enough  to  burn  through  obscurity. 
The  person  she  made  me  think  of  was  that  great 
man  whom  I  once  knew,  Dwight  Moody.  Here  was 
the  same  breadth  of  beam,  the  simplicity,  the  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature,  the  same  native  instinct  for 
the  fitting  word  that  comes  from  being  fed  on  the 
greatest  literature  in  the  world,  and  from  using  the 
speech  of  powerful,  uneducated  persons.  When  she 
entered  the  room,  the  room  was  filled.  When  she 
left,  there  was  a  vacancy. 

Here  follows  the  account  in  her  own  words,  of 
the  last  days  of  Gerbeviller.  The  phrase  that  speaks 
through  all  her  recital  is  ''feu  et  sang,"  "fire  and 
blood."  The  Germans  said  on  entering  that  they 
would  give  "fire  and  blood"  to  the  village.  The 
reason  was  this:  A  handful  of  French  chasseurs, 
about  sixty  in  number,  had  held  up  the  German 


SISTER  JULIE  297 

Army  for  several  hours,  in  order  to  give  the  French 
Army  time  to  retreat.  This  battle  had  taken  place 
at  the  bridge  outside  the  village.  When  at  last 
the  Germans  broke  through,  they  were  irritated  by 
the  firm  resistance  which  had  delayed  their  plans. 
So  they  vented  their  ill-will  by  burning  the  houses 
and  murdering  the  peasants. 

SISTER  JULIE'S  STORY 

The  Germans  reached  the  Luneville  road  at  the 
entrance  of  Gerbeviller  at  10  minutes  after  seven 
in  the  morning.  They  saw  the  barricades,  for  our 
troops  had  built  a  barricade,  and  they  said  to  a 
woman,  Madame  Barthelemy: 

"Madame,  remove  the  barricades."  As  she  waited 
undecided  for  a  few  seconds,  they  said : 

"You  refuse.    Then  fire  and  blood." 

They  then  began  to  set  fire  to  all  the  houses  and 
they  shot  six  men.  They  threw  a  man  into  an  oven, 
a  baker,  Joseph  Jacques,  a  fine  fellow  of  fifty  years 
of  age,  married,  with  children.  It  was  necessary 
to  eat,  even  at  Gerbeviller,  and  it  was  necessary 
to  work  out  a  way  to  make  bread.  The  former  baker 
had  been  mobilized,  and  his  good  old  papa  was  in- 
firm and  unable  to  work.  So  Monsieur  Jacques  was 
busy  at  this  time  with  the  baking.  They  killed  him 
when  they  came.    It  was  about  eight  o'clock  in  the 


298    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

morning.    The  fires  of  the  oven  had  already  started. 

For  a  long  time  I  did  not  believe  it,  but  I  have 
had  a  confirmation  since.  You  will  see  how  by  what 
follows.  When  there  was  an  attack  in  Champagne, 
a  youth  of  Gerbeviller,  Florentin,  whose  father  was 
the  gardener  at  the  chateau,  found  himself  in  front 
of  certain  Germans  who  wished  to  give  themselves 
up  as  prisoners.    He  looked  at  them,  and  said: 

"You  are  not  'Comrades'  ('Kamerade'  is  the  word 
the  German  calls  out  when  he  surrenders).  You 
know  what  you  did  at  Gerbeviller.  So  don't  call 
yourselves  'Comrades.'  " 

A  German  said  to  him,  "It  was  I  who  flung  the 
man  into  the  oven.  I  was  ordered  to  do  it,  or  else 
I  should  have  been  'kaput.'  "  (This  is  slang  for  a 
"dead  one"). 

A  search  was  then  made,  and  in  the  oven  was 
found  the  thigh  bone  of  the  unfortunate  baker. 

I  have  seen  many  other  things.  I  have  seen  a 
man,  Barthelemy  of  Chanteheux.  I  have  seen  that 
man  spread  out  spitted  on  the  ground  by  a  bayonet. 

Here  is  what  they  have  done.  It  was  half-past 
six  in  the  evening.  I  heard  their  fifes.  Our  little 
chasseurs  had  retreated.  The  Germans  had  made 
fire  and  blood  all  the  day  long.  I  saw  them  and 
watched  them  well  in  this  street.  I  was  at  the  door. 
Yes,  there  were  six  of  us  at  this  door.  They  put 
fire  to  the  houses,  house  by  house,  shouting  as  they 


SISTER  JULIE  299 

burned  them.  Picture  to  yourself  a  human  wave, 
where  the  bank  has  been  broken  down.  They  poured 
into  the  street  precipitately,  with  their  "lightning 
conductors,"  which  shone  brilliant  in  the  sun  (the 
point  of  their  helmets).  They  sat  down,  seven  and 
eight  in  front  of  a  house.  They  kept  going  by  in 
great  numbers,  but  these  who  were  ordered  remained 
behind  in  front  of  each  house.  There  these  sat  be- 
fore the  houses,  while  those  others  went  past  with- 
out a  word.  They  put  their  knapsacks  on  the 
ground.  They  took  out  something  that  looked  like 
macaroni.  They  hurled  it  into  the  house.  There 
wasn't  a  pane  of  glass  left  in  our  windows,  because 
of  the  pom-pom  of  cannon  on  the  Fraimbois  road. 
I  saw  them  ordered  to  go  on  with  their  work  of  firing 
the  houses,  when  they  coolly  stopped  for  a  tiny 
minute  to  talk.  Then,  afresh,  I  saw  them  look  in 
their  knapsacks,  and  next  I  heard  a  detonation.  But 
it  was  not  a  detonation  like  that  of  the  report  of 
a  rifle  or  revolver.  This  was  like  the  crackle  of 
powder  priming,  of  crackers,  if  you  prefer.  They 
were  incendiary  pastilles  which  they  had  thrown  into 
the  fire  to  hasten  the  destruction.  At  the  end  of 
a  few  minutes  the  fire  picked  up  with  greater  in- 
tensity, and  directly  the  roofs  broke  in  one  after 
the  other  with  a  crash.  Many  of  our  people  did 
not  see  the  burning,  because  they  stayed  in  the  eel- 


300    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

lars,  lying  hidden  there,  frightened,  under  the  rub- 
bish. 

In  one  of  the  burning  houses  a  woman  was  liv- 
ing in  her  room  on  the  first  floor.  Two  Germans 
came  to  our  house  and  said : 

"My  sister,  come  quick  and  look  for  a  woman 
who  is  in  the  fire." 

The  woman  was  Madame  Zinius.  It  is  our  sis- 
ters who  went  there  at  their  risk  and  peril. 

The  Germans  had  their  destruction  organized.  In 
all  the  well-to-do  houses  they  began  by  plundering. 
They  did  not  burn  these  as  they  passed. 

A  few  minutes  later  we  saw  five  or  six  vehicles 
draw  up,  the  "Guimbardes,"  vans,  for  plundering 
and  carrying  away  the  linen  and  the  clothing. 
Women  came  with  these  vans,  young  women,  well 
dressed,  rich  enough.    They  were  not  "bad." 

[When  the  Germans  captured  a  town,  their  organ- 
ization of  loot  was  sometimes  carried  out  by  women, 
who  brought  up  motor  lorries,  which  the  soldiers 
filled  with  the  plunder  from  the  larger  houses,  and 
which  the  women  then  drove  away.  Sometimes 
these  women  were  dressed  as  Red  Cross  nurses.  I 
can  continue  the  proof  by  other  witnesses  elsewhere 
than  in  Gerbeviller.  The  organization  of  murder, 
arson  and  pillage  is  participated  in  by  German  men 
and  women.] 

Monsieur  Martin  had  at  his  place  many  sewing- 


SISTER  JULIE  301 

machines,  with  the  trade-mark  Victoria.  The  Ger- 
mans carried  them  away. 

I  have  told  you  that  they  threw  persons  into  the 
fire.  Monsieur  Pottier  was  forced  back  into  the  fire. 
His  wife  moaned  and  called  for  help. 

"Help  me  get  my  husband  out  of  the  fire,"  she 
cried. 

"Go  die  with  him,"  they  answered  her,  and  she, 
too,  was  pushed  into  the  flames. 

"They"  kept  coming  on,  playing  the  fife.  We 
awaited  them  at  the  door.  Only  thirteen  wounded 
French  soldiers  had  stayed  with  us.  They  had  been 
scattered  through  the  different  rooms.  But  we  put 
them  up  in  one  room  in  order  to  simplify  the  service 
and  give  them  a  bit  of  "coddling." 

We  saw  four  officers  on  horseback  approach. 
They  dismounted  in  front  of  our  town-hall,  twenty 
meters  away.  They  entered  the  building,  and  there 
they  put  everything  upside  down.  They  tumbled 
out  all  the  waste  paper,  the  entire  office  desk,  deter- 
mined to  find  the  records. 

They  remounted  and  rode  up  in  front  of  our 
house.  They  sat  there  looking  at  us  for  a  moment. 
They  had  the  manner  guttural  and  hard,  which  is  the 
German  way.  They  began  speaking  German. 
When  they  showed  signs  of  listening  to  my  reply, 
I  said  to  them : 

"Speak  French.     That  is  the  least  courtesy  you 


302    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

can  show  me.  Speak  French,  I  beg  of  you,  and  I 
will  answer  you." 

"You  have  French  soldiers  hidden  in  your  house 
with  their  arms,"  said  one  of  them. 

And  he  tramped  hither  and  thither  like  a  mad- 
man, and  he  sputtered  and  clattered.  (Et  il  se 
promenait  de  long  en  large  comme  un  fou,  et  il  bavait 
et  degoisait.) 

I  answered : 

"We  have  no  French  soldiers  here " 

The  German:     "You  have  French  soldiers." 

"Yes,  we  have  French  soldiers,  but  they  are 
wounded.    They  have  no  arms." 

One  of  them,  mighty,  with  a  truculent  air,  pulled 
out  his  sword. 

"They  have  their  arms,"  he  shouted,  and  he 
brandished  his  sword. 

"They  won't  hurt  you.    Enter,"  I  said. 

A  Lorraine  to  say  to  a  German  "Enter,"  that 
means  mischief.  (Un  Lorraine  dire  a  un  Allemand 
"Entrez":   Que  cela  fait  mall) 

Two  of  the  officers  dismounted.  Each  of  them 
hid  a  dagger  somewhere  in  his  breast.  That  thought 
that  they  could  harm  my  poor  little  wounded  men 
made  me  turn  my  look  a  few  seconds  on  the  action. 
And  as  they  took  out  their  revolvers  at  the  same 
time,  I  did  not  see  where  they  had  hidden  the  dag- 
gers. 


SISTER  JULIE  303 

The  finger  on  the  trigger,  they  nodded  their  head 
for  me  to  go  on  in  front  of  them.  I  went  in  front 
and  led  the  way  into  this  room  where  there  was 
nothing  but  four  walls,  and  no  furniture  except  the 
thirteen  beds  of  my  wounded.  I  entered  by  this 
door,  not  knowing  in  the  least  what  they  wanted 
to  do.  Imagine  this  room  with  the  first  bed  here, 
and  then  the  second  here,  et  cetera,  et  cetera.  I  went 
automatically  to  the  first  and,  more  involuntarily 
still,  placed  my  hand  on  the  bed  of  wounded  Num- 
ber One,  a  dragoon  wounded  by  a  horse. 

See,  now,  what  took  place:  the  imposing  one  of 
them  walked  in  with  his  dagger  in  his  left  hand 
(son  poignard,  la  gauche) ;  the  other  man  with 
his  revolver  was  there,  ready.  With  his  dag- 
ger in  his  left  hand,  the  first  man  stripped  the 
bed  for  its  full  length,  lifting  the  sheet,  the  coverlet 
and  the  bedclothes.  He  looked  down  in  a  manner 
evil,  malevolent,  ill-natured  (mechante,  malveil- 
lante,  mauvaise). 

No  response  from  the  wounded  men. 

He  did  not  say  anything  when  he  had  seen  what 
he  wished  to  see.  He  stepped  up  to  the  head  of  the 
wounded  man.  I  made  a  half  turn  toward  him.  I 
was  separated  from  him  by  our  wounded  man  who 
was  between  the  two  of  us. 

He  said  to  my  poor  unfortunate,  with  a  harsh 
gesture : 


304    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"You  and  your  men,  you  make  our  wounded  suf- 
fer on  the  battlefield.  You  cut  off  their  ears.  You 
put  out  their  eyes.    You  make  them  suffer." 

Still  no  response.    (Pas  reponse  encore.) 

When  I  saw  the  state  of  mind  he  was  in,  I  went 
round  at  once  on  the  left  side  of  the  wounded,  and 
I  said : 

"This  is  a  wounded  man,  and  this  place  is  the 
Red  Cross.  Here  we  do  well  for  all  and  ill  for 
none,  and  if  you  mean  well,  do  not  hurt  us.  Leave 
us  in  peace  as  you  do  everywhere  else.  We  will 
nurse  your  wounded  and  nurse  them  well." 

He  had  turned  around  to  watch  the  smoke  of  the 
fires  which  was  pouring  into  the  room  through  that 
opening,  and  he  stood  there  several  seconds  with  set 
face. 

My  little  wounded  men  hardly  ventured  to 
breathe.  Seeing  that  calm,  that  brooding  which  did 
not  bode  anything  good,  I  exerted  myself  to  repeat 
once  more: 

"If  you  mean  well,  do  not  hurt  us.  We  will  nurse 
your  wounded." 

And,  at  last,  to  help  him  come  out  of  his  speech- 
lessness : 

"3ee,  there,  everything  is  on  fire  over  there." 

He  answered  me : 

"We  are  not  barbarians.  No,  we  are  not  bar- 
barians.    And  if  the  civilians  had  not  fired  on  us 


SISTER  JULIE  305 

with  rifles,  we  should  not  have  had  any  burning 
here." 

"Those  were  not  civilians.    Those  were  soldiers." 

"Civilians,"  he  said. 

"No.     No.     No.     Soldiers." 

"Civilians,"  he  repeated;  "I  know  well  what  I  am 
saying.     I  saw  them." 

He  made  a  gesture  to  show  me  that  men  had  fired, 
while  he  cried  in  my  ears  with  all  his  might 
"Civilians." 

He  went  in  front  of  me,  and  stripped  the  second 
bed.  I  feared  that  he  might  speak  to  my  wounded, 
and  I  thought  I  should  do  well  if  I  placed  myself 
at  the  head  of  each  of  the  beds  as  he  uncovered  them. 
I  stepped  between  the  two  beds,  and  I  feared  what 
would  come  of  it  all.  In  this  way  I  made  the  round 
of  the  room  with  them,  standing  at  each  of  the  thir- 
teen points,  always  placing  myself  at  the  pillow  of 
each  wounded  man,  while  "they"  advanced  bed  by 
bed,  and  cautiously. 

I  did  not  know  how  they  had  arranged  their 
weapons,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  they  always  had 
their  finger  placed  on  the  trigger. 

The  second  man  with  his  revolver  held  his  gun  a 
Utile  low. 

I  followed  them,  shutting  the  door,  when  they 
went  to  the  Infirmary  of  the  old  men.  They  did 
not  say  anything  and  they  did  not  promise  that  they 


3o6    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

would  not  set  fire  to  us.  How  should  I  go  about  get- 
ting that  promise? 

A  third  time  I  asked  them : 

"It  is  clearly  understood  that  we  shall  nurse 
your  wounded,  and  that  you  will  not  burn  this 
house." 

"They"  start  to  leave,  and  go  toward  the  door, 
walking  slowly.  When  the  chief  was  just  leaving, 
I  said  again  to  him : 

"It  is  clearly  understood  that  you  will  not  harm 
us  nor  burn  our  house." 

"No,  no." 

I  looked  to  see  if  he  gave  the  order  to  any  of  his 
soldiers.  I  didn't  see  that,  but  I  noticed  one  of  our 
sisters  who  was  drawing  a  wheelbarrow  with  an  old 
man  in  it,  who  weighed  at  least  seventy-five  kilos 
and  who  was  paralyzed. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  I  asked  her. 

"Over  there;  the  soldiers  tell  me  that  they  are 
coming  to  set  fire  to  the  hospital,"  she  replied.  "One 
of  our  old  men  cried  out  to  me,  'My  sister,  do  not 
make  us  stay  here.  Let  us  go  and  die  in  peace,  since 
they  are  killing  everybody  here.  We  would  rather 
leave  and  die  of  hunger  in  the  fields.'  So  I  said, 
'Come  along,  then.'  " 

For  the  moment  I  am  all  alone  in  this  room  with 
my  thirteen  wounded  men.    I  said  to  myself,  "My 


SISTER  JULIE  307 

God,  what  will  become  of  me  all  alone  in  the  midst 
of  fire  and  blood." 

I  stood  a  few  seconds  in  the  doorway  and  then 
went  in  to  see  our  little  soldiers. 

"My  poor  children,  I  ask  your  forgiveness  for 
bringing  in  such  a  visitation,  but  I  assure  you  that 
I  thought  my  last  quarter  hour  had  come.  I  thought 
they  were  going  to  kill  us  all." 

"My  sister,  stay  with  us,"  they  said;  "stay  with 
us." 

"I  will  bear  the  impossible,  my  children,  to  save 
your  life." 

I  remained  there  a  few  minutes,  and  then  two 
German  soldiers  presented  themselves  with  fixed 
bayonets.  I  stepped  down  the  two  stairs;  see  what 
an  escort  was  there  for  me  I 

"Why  is  this  house  shut  up"?  There  are  French 
in  it,  lying  hidden  with  their  arms." 

"The  owner  has  been  mobilized,  and  so  has  gone 
away.    His  wife  and  children  have  gone  away." 

They  kept  on  insisting:  "The  French.  Hidden. 
In  there." 

They  indicated  the  place  with  a  gesture. 

I  thought  to  myself.  What  is  happening"?  What 
will  they  do"?  Here  are  the  men  who  will  set  fire 
to  the  house. 

"Why  will  you  set  fire  to  this  house*?"  I  asked. 
"Your  chiefs  don't  wish  it.    They  have  promised  me 


3o8    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

that  they  won't  burn  here.  You  want  to  set  fire 
here  out  of  excitement  (par  contagion).  Will  you 
put  out  the  fire^" 

I  said  again  to  them: 

"It  is  wicked  to  set  fire  here,  because  we  shall 
nurse  your  wounded." 

Wliile  this  was  going  on,  our  sisters  upstairs  were 
not  able  to  subdue  the  poor  father  Prevost.  He  is 
an  old  man  of  eighty-eight  years,  partly  paralyzed  in 
leg  and  arm.  I  was  at  the  doorway.  I  heard  him 
call  out: 

"They  shoved  me  into  the  fire.  They  have  gone 
away  and  left  me.  I  am  going  to  fall  out  of  the 
window." 

I  climbed  to  the  fourth  floor  of  the  house  where 
he  was,  to  try  to  attract  him  away,  but  he  did  not 
wish  to  come.  He  was  foolish.  I  knew  that  he  was 
fond  of  white  sugar.  I  went  up  to  him  and  showed 
him  the  sugar.  I  took  his  jacket  and  put  his  snow- 
boots  on  him,  so  that  he  could  get  away  more 
quickly.  You  know  those  boots  which  fasten  by 
means  of  two  or  three  buckles,  very  primitive,  and 
which  are  so  speedily  put  on.  At  last  I  led  him  to 
the  edge  of  the  doorway  here. 

The  Germans  saw  him  and  said :  "It  is  a  lunatic 
asylum,  don't  you  see*?"  so  they  said  to  each  other. 
"They  want  to  kill  the  sisters.  There  is  no  need  of 
going  into  that  house.     It  is  a  lunatic  asylum." 


SISTER  JULIE  309 

That  is  the  reason,  I  believe,  why  they  didn't 
come  into  the  house  during  the  night.  They  en- 
tered the  chapel  of  the  hospital. 

While  I  was  with  the  Germans,  some  of  their  like 
had  come  to  our  Infirmary  to  say : 

"You  must  leave  here  because  we  are  going  to  set 
fire." 

They  then  said  to  the  old  people: 

"We  have  orders  to  burn  the  Infirmary." 

Among  the  number  we  had  the  poor  mother 
Andre,  Monsieur  Porte,  who  walked  hobbling  like 
this;  Monsieur  Georget,  who  is  hung  on  only  one 
wire,  and  Monsieur  Leroy,  who  isn't  hung  on  any 
(qui  ne  tenait  qu'a  un  iil,  Monsieur  Leroy  qui  ne 
tenait  plus  non  plus). 

[Sister  Julie  limped  across  the  room.  She  bent 
her  back  double.  She  went  feeble.  In  swift  panto- 
mime she  revealed  each  infirmity  of  the  aged  people. 
She  created  the  picture  of  a  flock  of  sick  and  crippled 
sheep  driven  before  wolves.] 

At  four  o'clock  they  were  led  away  to  Mareville. 
Those  of  whom  I  tell  you  died  in  the  course  of  the 
year.  Death  came  likewise  to  seven  others  who 
would  not  have  died  but  for  that. 

The  next  morning  we  had  German  wounded.  No 
one  to  care  for  them.  What  to  do"?  I  said  to  a 
wounded  Lieutenant-Colonel : 


310    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"You  have  given  us  many  wounded  to  tend. 
Where  are  your  majors^" 

See  what  he  answered  me.  "They  have  aban- 
doned us." 

That  evening  this  Lieutenant-Colonel  said  to  me 
in  a  rough  voice : 

"Some  bread,  my  sister," 

"You  haven't  any  bread*?"  I  said.  "You  have 
burned  our  bakery  and  killed  our  baker  in  it.  You 
have  burned  our  butcher  shop  with  our  butcher  in 
it.  And  now  you  have  no  bread  and  no  meat.  Eat 
potatoes  as  we  have  to." 

He  was  hit  in  the  calf  of  the  leg,  but  the  leg  bone 
was  not  touched,  nor  the  femur;  it  was  not  a  severe 
wound.  He  unrolled  his  bandage  and  showed  me 
his  treatment,  assuming  an  air  of  pain. 

"Aiel     Aie!"  he  cried. 

Ah!  "They"  are  more  soft  (douillets)  than  our 
poor  little  French.    I  began  to  dress  his  leg. 

"It  is  terrible,  my  sister,  this  war.  Terrible  for 
you  and  for  us  also.  If  the  French  were  the  least  bit 
intelligent,  they  would  ask  for  peace  at  once.  Bel- 
gium is  ours.    In  three  days  we  shall  be  at  Paris." 

The  bandage  tightened  on  his  wound.  "Ah,"  he 
said. 

I  replied  to  him:  "It  is  your  Kaiser  who  is  the 
cause  of  all  this." 

"Oh,  no.    Not  the  Kaiser.    The  Kaiser.    Oh,  the 


SISTER  JULIE  311 

Kaiser."  As  he  pronounced  the  word  "Kaiser,"  he 
seemed  to  be  letting  something  very  good  come  out 
of  his  mouth,  as  if  he  were  savoring  it. 

The  bandage  went  round  once  more.  "Ah,"  he 
said. 

"It  is  then  his  son,  the  Crown  Prince,  who  is  re- 
sponsible*?" I  continued. 

"Not  at  all.    Not  at  all;  it  is  France." 

"France  is  peace-loving,"  I  replied. 

"It  is  Serbia,  because  the  Austrian  Archduke  was 
killed  by  a  Serbian." 

The  29th  or  30th  of  the  month  shells  fell  occa- 
sionally over  our  roof.  My  famous  wounded  Ger- 
man was  frightened. 

"My  sister,  I  must  be  carried  to  the  cellar  at  once." 

"There's  no  danger.  The  French  never  fire  on  the 
Red  Cross,"  I  said  to  him. 

"I  am  a  poor  wounded  man.  So  carry  me  to  the 
cellar." 

I  gave  in.  I  carried  him  to  the  cellar,  and  he 
stayed  there  some  days. 


XII 

SISTER    JULIE CONTINUED 

DURING  the  days  of  fire  and  blood  Sister 
Julie  was  acting  mayor  of  Gerbeviller.  It 
was  no  light  job,  for  she  had  to  steer  an 
invading  army  away  from  her  hospital  of  wounded 
men,  and  she  was  the  source  of  courage  for  the  vil- 
lage of  peasants,  who  were  being  hunted  and  tor- 
tured. Many  months  have  passed,  and  nothing  is 
left  of  those  days  but  crumbled  stone  and  village 
graves  and  an  everlasting  memory.  But  she  is  still 
the  soul  of  Gerbeviller.  Pilgrims  come  to  her  from 
the  provinces  of  France,  and  give  her  money  for  her 
poor  and  sick.  The  village  still  has  need  of  her.  I 
saw  her  with  the  woman  whose  aged  mother  was 
shot  before  her  eyes,  and  with  the  mother  whose  little 
boy  was  murdered. 

She  went  on  with  her  story : 

SISTER  JULIE'S  STORY 

As  soon  as  the  Germans  came  they  began  their 
work  by  taking  hostages,  the  same  number  as  that 

312 


SISTER  JULIE  313 

of  the  municipal  councilors.  They  led  them  all 
away  to  the  end  of  town  by  the  bridge,  on  the  road 
which  leads  to  Rambervillers.  A  German  passed, 
and  when  he  saw  them  he  shouted  out : 

"See  the  flock  of  sheep.  They  are  taking  you 
away  to  be  shot."  And  he  pointed  out  to  them  with 
his  fingers  the  place  of  their  torment. 

In  the  morning  four  or  five  officers  arrived  to  hear 
testimony  from  some  of  the  men.  It  was  Leonard, 
the  grocer,  who  told  me  that  four  persons  were  ques- 
tioned. 

"Stand  there,  "They"  said  to  them. 

"Which  is  the  one  who  lives  next  door  to  the  hos- 
pital *?"  an  officer  asked. 

Leonard  stepped  forward. 

"Is  it  not  true  that  the  Lady  Superior  of  the  Hos- 
pital organized  her  people  for  the  purpose  of  firing 
on  our  wounded  with  rifles^" 

Leonard  replied: 

"I  am  sure  that  it  is  not  so.  And  even  if  she  were 
to  order  it,  they  would  not  obey." 

"Do  you  know  what  you  are  in  danger  of  in  tell- 
ing lies'?  We  have  seen  the  bullets  come  from  the 
hospital.    We  are  sure.    Go  write  your  deposition." 

"I  can't  do  it,"  answered  Leonard. 

He  was  forced  to  write  his  deposition.  When  he 
had  finished  it,  he  presented  it  to  the  chief. 

"Sign  it,  and  follow  me,     I  am  sure  that  I  saw 


314    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

bullets  come  from  that  part  of  the  street.  Certainly 
men  were  there  who  fired  on  our  chiefs." 

They  also  said  to  him  that  our  chasseurs  had  fired 
on  them  from  the  chateau  of  Madame  de  Lambertye, 
and  they  themselves  went  to  get  a  statement  at  the 
spot  to  see  if  it  was  possible  to  hit  a  man  from  the 
chateau  and  kill  him. 

I  had  seen  the  turrets  of  the  chateau  of  Lambertye 
burning  about  half-past  nine  in  the  morning  and  all 
the  upper  part.  That  was  by  incendiary  bombs. 
The  day  after  the  fires  we  saw  empty  cans,  about 
sixty  of  them,  the  kind  used  for  motor-car  gasoline, 
lying  about  in  the  garden  of  the  chateau. 

Besides  all  that,  there  are  still  the  bodily  indig- 
nities which  must  not  be  passed  over  in  silence.  The 
twenty-fourth  and  twenty-fifth,  "they"  used  fire  and 
blood.  The  following  days  "they"  amused  them- 
selves by  teasing  everybody.  The  poor  Monsieur 
Jacob,  who  makes  lemonade,  was  struck  and  thrown 
to  the  ground.  Then  they  spit  in  his  face,  and 
threatened  to  shoot  him,  without  any  reason. 

They  were  drunk  with  the  wine  of  Gerbeviller,  if 
one  is  to  judge  from  their  helmets,  which  had  lost 
their  lightning  conductors. 

The  sacred  images  of  the  church  were  not  re- 
spected. It  was  the  evening  of  the  twenty-ninth.  A 
soldier-priest.  Monsieur  the  Abbe  Bernard,  went  to 
see  a  tiny  bit  of  what  was  taking  place. 


SISTER  JULIE  315 

"Do  you  know,  my  sister,  what  has  been  done 
to  the  ciborium  (sacred  vessel  for  the  sacrament)  V 

I  went  with  him.  We  came  to  the  church.  We 
entered  with  difficulty.  A  bell  blocked  us  from 
passing,  and  shells  had  broken  down  the  vaulting  in 
many  places.  We  went  on  our  way,  but  always  with 
difficulty.  We  saw  the  crucifix  which  had  the  feet 
broken  by  blow  on  blow  from  the  butt-end  of  rifles. 
We  still  went  on,  and  saw  the  pipes  of  the  organ 
lying  on  the  ground.  We  came  in  front  of  the  taber- 
nacle (the  box  which  holds  the  sacred  vessels). 
There  we  counted  eighteen  bullet  holes  which  had 
perforated  the  door  around  the  lock.  The  displace- 
ment of  air  produced  by  the  bursting  of  the  bullet 
had  forced  the  screws  to  jump  out.  "They"  had  not 
thought  that  this  little  dwelling-place  was  a  strong- 
box and  that  it  had  flat  bolts,  both  vertical  and  hori- 
zontal. We  were  now  agitated  to  see  if  anything 
else  had  taken  place  in  the  tabernacle. 

Monsieur,  the  Abbe  Bernard,  took  a  hammer,  and 
as  gently  as  he  could  he  succeeded  in  making  a  little 
opening  just  large  enough  for  one  to  see  that  there 
was  something  else  inside.  With  the  barrel  of  an 
unloaded  gun,  he  then  made  a  full  opening.  The 
ciborium,  the  sacred  vessel,  was  uncovered  and  had 
been  projected  against  the  bottom.  The  cover, 
fallen  to  one  side,  had  a  number  of  bullet  marks,  as 
the  ciborium  itself  had. 


3i6    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  bullets  in  penetrating  the  front  of  the  taber- 
nacle had  made  everj-'where  little  holes,  and  these 
holes  were  in  a  shape  nearly  symmetrical  around  the 
lock.    At  the  rear  there  were  many  much  larger  holes. 

Monsieur,  the  Abbe,  took  those  sacred  things  and 
the  cover  of  the  altar  and  carried  them  to  the  chapel. 

The  17th  and  the  Goth  Bavarian  Regiments  were 
the  ones  that  did  this  work.  One-third  at  least  of 
these  men  were  protestant,  and  among  them  were 
many  returned  convicts. 

One  of  our  sisters  saw  a  book  of  a  German  officer 
who  was  nursed  here,  and  noticed  that  he  was  from 
Bitsch. 

(Bitsch  is  a  Roman  Catholic  town  in  Lorraine 
which  long  belonged  to  France,  and  which  held  out 
against  the  Germans  almost  to  the  end  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War). 

"How  is  this?"  she  asked.  "You  are  from  Bitsch, 
and  yet  it  is  you  who  dare  to  do  the  things  that  you 
have  done." 

"We  are  under  orders,"  he  answered.  "The  fur- 
ther we  go  into  France,  the  worse  we  shall  do.  It 
is  commanded.  Otherwise  we  shall  be  killed  our- 
selves." 

Let  us  return  to  the  Germans  who  were  applying 
fire  and  blood.  They  led  away  fifteen  men,  old  men, 
to  a  shed  at  about  quarter  past  ten.  Later  they 
made  them  leave  the  shed.     General  Clauss,  who 


SISTER  JULIE  317 

was  in  command  of  two  regiments,  was  sitting  un- 
der the  oak  tree  which  you  will  be  able  to  see  on 
your  return  trip.  He  was  in  front  of  a  table  charged 
with  champagne,  and  was  drinking,  during  the  time 
that  his  soldiers  were  arranging  the  poor  unhappy 
old  men,  getting  them  ready  to  be  shot.  They  had 
bound  them  in  groups  of  five,  and  they  shot  them  in 
three  batches.  They  now  lie  buried  in  the  same 
spot. 

The  General  said:  "When  I  have  filled  my  cup 
and  as  I  raise  it  to  my  lips,  give  them  fire  and  blood." 

We  said  good-by  to  Sister  Julie.  I  walked  down 
the  street  to  the  ruins  of  the  chateau  of  Lambertye, 
Sister  Julie  has  told  of  the  empty  gasoline  cans  that 
were  left  in  the  garden  of  the  chateau.  They  had 
served  their  purpose  well :  I  stepped  through  the  lit- 
ter that  was  once  a  beautiful  home.  But  there  was 
one  work  which  flaming  oil  could  not  do.  I  went 
into  the  garden,  and  came  to  the  grotto  of  the  cha- 
teau. It  is  a  lovely  secret  place,  hidden  behind  a 
grove,  and  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock.  It 
glows  red  from  the  fundamental  stone  of  its  struc- 
ture, with  jewel-like  splinters  of  many-colored  peb- 
bles sunk  in  the  parent  stone.  Fire,  the  favorite  Ger* 
man  instrument  for  creating  a  new  world,  could  not 
mar  the  stout  stone  and  pebbles  of  the  little  place, 
but  such  beauty  must  somehow  be  obliterated.     So 


3i8    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  careful  soldiers  mounted  ladders  and  chipped  to 
pieces  some  of  the  ceiling,  painfully  with  hammers. 
The  dent  of  the  hammers  is  visible  throughout  the 
vaulting.  The  mosaic  was  too  tough  even  for  their 
patience,  and  they  had  to  leave  it  mutilated  but  not 
destroyed. 

Several  times  in  Gerbeviller  we  see  this  infinite 
capacity  for  taking  pains.  The  thrusting  of  the 
baker  into  his  own  oven  is  a  touch  that  a  less 
thoughtful  race  could  never  have  devised.  When 
they  attacked  the  tabernacle  containing  the  sacra- 
mental vessel  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church.  Sister 
Julie  has  told  how  they  placed  the  eighteen  bullets 
that  defiled  it  in  pattern.  The  honest  methodical 
brain  is  behind  each  atrocity,  and  the  mind  of  the 
race  leaves  its  mark  even  on  ruins. 

Finally,  when  they  shot  the  fifteen  white-haired 
old  men,  the  murders  were  done  in  series,  in  sets  of 
five,  with  a  regular  rhythm.  I  can  produce  photo- 
graphs of  the  dead  bodies  of  these  fifteen  old  men 
as  they  lay  grouped  on  the  meadow.  We  stood  un- 
der the  oak  tree  where  the  officer  sat  as  he  drank  his 
toasts  to  death.  We  looked  over  to  the  little  spot 
where  the  old  men  were  herded  together  and  mur- 
dered. Leon  Mirman,  Prefect  of  Meurthe-et-Mo- 
selle,  said  to  us  as  we  stood  there: 

"I,  myself,  came  here  at  the  beginning  of  Septem- 
ber, 1914.     Fifteen  old  men  were  here,  lying  one 


SISTER  JULIE  319 

upon  the  other,  in  groups  of  five,  I  saw  them,  their 
clothes  drooping.  One  was  able  to  see  also  by  their 
attitude  that  two  or  three  had  been  smoking  their 
pipes  just  before  dying.  Others  held  their  packets 
of  tobacco  in  their  hands.  I  saw  these  fifteen 
hostages,  fifteen  old  men,  some  ten  days  after  they 
had  been  killed ;  the  youngest  must  have  been  sixty 
years  of  age. 

"We  shall  set  up  here  a  commemorative  monu- 
ment which  will  tell  to  future  generations  the  thing 
that  has  taken  place  here." 

For  centuries  the  race  has  lived  on  a  few  episodes, 
short  as  the  turn  of  a  sunset.  The  glancing  helmet 
of  Hector  that  frightened  one  tiny  child,  the  tooth- 
less hound  of  Ulysses  that  knew  the  beggar  man — 
always  it  is  the  little  lonely  things  that  shake  us. 
Vast  masses  of  men  and  acres  of  guns  blur  into  un- 
reality. The  battle  hides  itself  in  thick  clouds, 
swaying  in  the  night.  But  the  cry  that  rang  through 
Gerbeviller  does  not  die  away  in  our  ears.  Sister 
Julie  has  given  episodes  of  a  bitter  brevity  which 
the  imagination  of  the  race  will  not  shake  off.  It 
is  impossible  to  look  out  on  the  world  with  the  same 
eyes  after  those  flashes  of  a  new  bravery,  a  new  hor- 
ror. I  find  this  sudden  revelation  in  the  lifting  of 
the  cup  with  the  toast  that  signed  the  death  of  the 
old  men.  The  officer  was  drinking  a  sacrament  of 
death  by  murder.    It  is  as  if  there  in  that  act  under 


320    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  lonely  tree  in  the  pleasant  fields  of  Gerbeviller 
the  new  religion  of  the  Germans  had  perfected  its 
rite. 

That  rite  of  the  social  cup,  held  aloft  in  the  eyes 
of  comrades,  has  been  a  symbol  for  good  will  in  all 
the  ages.  Brotherhood  was  being  proclaimed  as  the 
host  of  the  feast  looked  out  on  a  table  of  comrades. 
At  last  in  the  fullness  of  time  the  rite,  always  hon- 
ored, was  lifted  into  the  unassailable  realm  of  poetry, 
when  one  greater  man  came  who  went  to  his  death 
blithely  from  the  cup  that  he  drank  with  his  friends. 
There  it  has  remained  homely  and  sacred  in  the 
thought  of  the  race. 

Suddenly  under  the  oak  tree  of  Gerbeviller  the 
rite  has  received  a  fresh  meaning.  The  cup  has  been 
torn  from  the  hands  of  the  Nazarene.  By  one 
gesture  the  German  officer  reversed  the  course  of 
history.  He  sat  there  very  lonely,  and  he  drank 
alone.  The  cup  that  he  tasted  was  the  death  of 
men. 

It  is  no  longer  the  lifting  of  all  to  a  common  fel- 
lowship. It  no  longer  means  "I  who  stand  here  am 
prepared  to  die  for  you" :  pledge  of  a  union  stronger 
even  than  death.  It  is  suddenly  made  the  symbol  of 
a  greater  gospel:  "I  drink  to  your  death.  I  drink 
alone." 


ADDENDUM 

IN  the  month  of  November,  1915,  the  "Ameri- 
can Hostels  for  Refugees"  were  founded  by 
Mrs.  Wharton  and  a  group  of  American 
friends  in  Paris  to  provide  lodgings  and  a  restaurant 
for  the  Belgians  and  French  streaming  in  from  burn- 
ing villages  and  bombarded  towns.  These  people 
were  destitute,  starving,  helpless  and  in  need  of  im- 
mediate aid.  The  work  developed  into  an  organi- 
zation which  cares  permanently  for  over  4,000  refu- 
gees, chiefly  French  from  the  invaded  regions.  A 
system  of  household  visiting  has  been  organized,  and 
not  even  temporary  assistance  is  now  given  to  any 
refugee  whose  case  has  not  been  previously  investi- 
gated. The  refugees  on  arrival  are  carefully  regis- 
tered and  visited.  Assistance  is  either  in  the  form 
of  money  toward  paying  rent,  of  clothing,  medical 
care,  tickets  for  groceries  and  coal,  tickets  for  one 
of  the  restaurants  of  the  Hostels,  or  lodgings  in  one 
of  the  Model  Lodging  Houses.  Over  6,000  refu- 
gees have  been  provided  with  employment. 

There  are  six  centers  for  the  work.     One  house 
has  a  restaurant  where  500  meals  a  day  are  served 

321 


322  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

at  a  charge  of  lo  centimes  a  meal,  and  an  "Ouvroir" 
where  about  50  women  are  employed  under  a  dress- 
maker, with  a  day-nursery,  an  infant-school,  a  li- 
brary and  recreation  room.  Another  center  is  a 
Rest-house  for  women  and  children  requiring  rest 
and  careful  feeding.  Young  mothers  are  received 
here  after  the  birth  of  their  children,  and  children 
whose  mothers  are  in  hospital.  Sixty  meals  a  day 
are  served  here  with  a  special  diet  for  invahds.  An- 
other center  contains  a  clothing  depot,  which  has 
distributed  nearly  100,000  garments,  including  suits 
of  strong  working  clothes  for  the  men  placed  in  fac- 
tories; layettes,  and  boots.  In  the  same  building  are 
Dispensary  and  Consultation  rooms.  Twenty  to 
thirty  patients  are  cared  for  daily  at  the  Dispensary. 
Another  house  contains  the  Grocery  Depot,  and  an- 
other the  office  for  coal-tickets.  An  apartment  house, 
and  two  other  houses  have  been  made  into  lodging 
houses.  The  apartment  lets  out  rooms  at  rents  vary- 
ing from  8  to  1 5  francs  a  month.  One  of  the  houses 
contains  free  furnished  lodgings  for  very  poor 
women  with  large  families  of  young  children.  These 
three  houses  have  met  the  need  of  cheap  sanitary 
lodgings  in  place  of  damp,  dirty  rooms  at  high  rents, 
where  sick  and  well  were  herded  together,  often  in 
one  filthy  bed. 

Such  is  the  work  of  the  "American  Hostels  for 
Refugees."    The  present  cost  of  maintaining  all  the 


ADDENDUM  323 

branches  of  this  well-organized  charity  is  about  five 
thousand  dollars  a  month. 

Mrs.  Wharton  has  also  established  "American 
Convalescent  Homes  for  Refugees."  Many  refu- 
gees come  broken  in  health,  with  chronic  bronchitis 
and  incipient  tuberculosis  and  even  severer  maladies. 
Seventy-one  beds  are  provided.  There  is  also  a 
house  where  30  children,  suffering  from  tuberculosis 
of  the  bone  and  of  the  glands  are  being  cared  for. 
Four  thousand  dollars  a  month  should  be  provided 
at  once  for  this  work. 

At  the  request  of  the  Belgian  Government  Mrs. 
Wharton  has  founded  the  "Children  of  Flanders 
Rescue  Committee."  The  bombardment  of  Furnes, 
Ypres,  Poperinghe  and  the  villages  along  the  Yser 
drove  the  inhabitants  south.  The  Belgian  Govern- 
ment asked  Mrs.  Wharton  if  she  could  receive  60 
children  at  48  hours'  notice.  The  answer  was  "yes," 
and  a  home  established.  Soon  after,  the  Belgian 
Government  asked  Mrs.  Wharton  to  receive  five  or 
six  hundred  children.  Houses  were  at  once  estab- 
lished, and  these  houses  are  under  the  management 
of  the  Flemish  Sisters  who  brought  the  children  from 
the  cellars  of  village-homes,  from  lonely  farm- 
houses, in  two  cases  from  the  arms  of  the  father, 
killed  by  a  fragment  of  shell.  Lace-schools,  sewing 
and  dress-making  classes,  agriculture  and  gardening 
are  carried  on.     Seven  hundred  and  thirty-five  chil- 


324  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

dren  are  cared  for.  The  monthly  expense  Is  8,000 
francs. 

One  of  the  most  Important  charities  In  which  Mrs. 
Wharton,  Mrs.  Edward  Tuck,  and  Judge  Walter 
Berry  are  Interested,  Is  that  for  "French  Tubercu- 
lous War  Victims,"  In  direct  connection  with  the 
Health  Department  of  the  French  Ministry  of  War. 
Nearly  100,000  tuberculous  soldiers  have  already 
been  sent  back  from  the  French  front.  They  must 
be  shown  how  to  get  well  and  receive  the  chance  to 
get  well.  One  hospital  Is  already  In  operation,  and 
three  large  sanatoria  are  nearing  completion,  with 
100  beds  each.  The  object  is  not  only  to  cure  the 
sufferers,  but  to  teach  them  a  trade  enabling  them 
to  earn  their  living  In  the  country.  Tuberculous 
soldiers  are  comnig  daily  to  the  offices  of  this  char- 
ity In  ever-increasing  numbers  asking  to  be  taken 
In.  The  answer  will  depend  on  American  gen- 
erosity. 

A  group  of  Americans,  headed  by  Mrs.  Robert 
Woods  Bliss,  whose  husband  Is  First  Secretary  of 
the  American  Embassy  in  Paris,  have  instituted  and 
carried  on  a  "Distributing  Service"  in  France.  The 
name  of  the  organization  Is  "Service  de  Distribution 
Americalne."  It  was  established  on  Its  present  basis 
In  December,  19 14,  and  grew  out  of  personal  work 
done  by  Mrs.  Bliss  since  the  beginning  of  the  war. 
The  purpose  has  been  to  supply  hospitals  throughout 


ADDENDUM  325 

France  with  whatever  they  need.     By  the  end  of 
19 1 6,  the  results  were  these: 

Number  of  towns  visited i)290 

Number  of  hospitals  inspected  and  supplied....  3i036 

Number  of  articles  distributed 4,839,902 

The  Director  of  the  organization  is  Russell  Gree- 
ley, the  secretary  of  Geoffrey  Dodge.  The  service 
has  a  garage  outside  the  gates  of  Paris  with  ten 
cars  and  a  lorry.  All  the  staff,  except  the  stenog- 
raphers and  packers,  are  volunteers. 

This  work  for  the  French  is  connected  with  the 
American  Distributing  Service  for  the  Serbians, 
which  was  begun  by  sending  the  late  Charles  R. 
Cross,  Jr.,  to  Serbia  as  a  member  of  the  American 
Sanitary  Commission  headed  by  Dr.  R.  P.  Strong, 
in  the  spring  of  19 15.  Mr.  Cross  made  an  investi- 
gation of  the  situation  in  Serbia  at  that  time  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  American  Distributing 
Service. 

In  January,  19 16,  Mrs.  Charles  Henry  Hawes 
of  the  Greek  Red  Cross,  wife  of  Professor  Hawes 
of  Dartmouth  College,  Hanover,  being  on  her  way 
to  Italy  and  Greece  for  the  purpose  of  conveying 
relief  into  Albania  through  Janlna,  offered  her  serv- 
ices to  the  Distributing  Service  for  the  convoying 
and  distribution  of  supplies.  Hrs.  Hawes's  offer 
was  accepted  and  she  was  furnished  with  a  small 


326  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

fund  for  the  purpose  of  supplies.  Events  forestalled 
her,  but  she  succeeded  in  landing  and  distributing  to 
the  last  Serbians  leaving  San  Giovanni  di  Medua,  a 
thousand  rations.  At  the  same  time  she  took  an 
active  part  in  relief  work  at  Brindisi,  and  distributed 
about  a  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  supplies  to  the 
Serb  refugees  passing  through  that  port. 

Meanwhile  the  French  Army  Medical  Service  had 
created  the  "Mission  de  Coordination  de  Secours 
aux  Armees  d'Orient"  for  the  purpose  of  distribu- 
ting relief  supplies  to  the  Serbian  and  other  Allied 
armies  in  the  Balkans.  A  member  of  the  Distrib- 
uting Service  was  appointed  a  member  of  the  Mis- 
sion, and  a  fund  of  100,000  francs  placed  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  Distributing  Service  which  thencefor- 
ward cooperated  actively  in  the  work  of  the  Mission. 
Urgent  representations  of  the  need  of  help  in  Corfou 
having  been  made  early  in  February  to  the  Mis- 
sion by  the  French  Army  Medical  Service,  Mrs. 
Hawes,  representing  the  Distributing  Service  and 
the  Mission  jointly,  was  sent  to  Corfou  where  she 
established  a  soup  kitchen  and  did  other  valuable 
relief  work  at  Vido.  She  was  later  joined  at  Corfou 
by  Countess  de  Reinach-Foussemagne,  Infirmiere 
Deleguee  of  the  Mission.  Through  these  two  agents 
the  Distributing  Service  sent  to  Corfou  and  distrib- 
uted 197  cases  of  foodstuffs,  clothing,  and  various 


ADDENDUM  327 

articles  needed,  5  cases  of  medicines  and  40  tins  of 
paraffine.  The  Service  disbursed  for  similar  pur- 
poses through  Mrs.  Hawes  and  Countess  de  Reinach, 
fifteen  thousand  francs  in  cash.  It  was  also  instru- 
mental in  erecting  a  monument  at  Vido  to  the  Serbs 
who  died  there. 

When  the  crisis  at  Corfou  was  at  an  end  the  field 
depot  of  the  Mission  was  moved  to  Solonica.  There 
the  Service  distributed  to  Serbians  various  shipments 
of  relief  and  hospital  supplies :    A  total  of  454  cases. 

The  Distributing  Service  now  has  ready  and  is 
preparing  to  send  forward  for  the  Serbian  Army  a 
laundry  outfit,  a  disinfecting  outfit  and  a  complete 
field  surgical  outfit  (portable  house  for  operating 
room  equipment  and  radiograph  plant).  A  ship- 
ment is  also  going  forward  for  Monastir  where  the 
field  depot  of  the  Mission  was  established  on  No- 
vember 22nd,  of  5,000  francs'  worth  of  foodstuffs 
and  other  urgently  needed  materials,  and  a  larger 
quantity  is  being  accumulated  to  be  sent  forward 
without  delay. 

In  addition,  the  Distributing  Service  has  sent 
about  2,000  kilos  of  hospital  supplies  to  the  Serbs 
in  the  Lazaret  of  Frioul,  off  Marseille,  and  a  similar 
quantity  of  material  to  the  hospitals  at  Sidi-Abdallah 
(Tunis),  and  elsewhere  in  Tunisia  and  Algeria, 
given  over  to  the  treatment  of  Serbians. 


328  OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Mrs.  Bliss  and  her  friends  have  also  conducted 
a  work  for  "frontier  children,"  dating  from  August, 
1 9 14,  which  has  cared  for  French,  Belgian  and  Al- 
satian children  to  the  number  of  1,500. 


APPENDIX 
I 

TO  THE   READER 

THIS  book  is  only  a  sign  post  pointing  to  the  place 
where  better  men  than  I  have  suffered  and  left  a 
record.  For  those  who  wish  to  go  further  on  this 
road  I  give  sources  of  information  for  facts  which  I  have 
sketched   in   outline. 

The  full  authoritative  account  of  the  American  Ambu- 
lance Field  Service  will  be  found  in  a  book  called  "Friends 
of  France,"  written  by  the  young  Americans  who  -drove  the 
cars  at  the  front.  It  is  one  of  the  most  heartening  books  that 
our  country  has  produced  in  the  last  fifty  years.  Much  of 
our  recent  writing  has  been  the  record  of  commercial  suc- 
cess, of  growth  in  numbers,  and  of  clever  mechanical  de- 
vices. We  have  been  celebrating  the  things  that  result  in 
prosperity,  as  if  the  value  of  life  lay  in  comfort  and  se- 
curity. But  the  story  of  these  young  men  is  altogether  a 
record  of  work  done  without  pay,  under  conditions  of  dan- 
ger that  sometimes  resulted  in  wounds  and  death.  Their 
service  was  given  because  France  was  fighting  for  an  idea. 
Risk  and  sacrifice  and  the  dream  of  equality  are  more  at- 
tractive to  young  men  than  safety,  neutrality  and  commer- 
cial supremacy. 

Those  who  wish  to  assure  themselves  that  a  healthy  na- 
tionalism is  the  method  by  which  a  people  serves  humanity 

329 


330     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

will  find  an  exalted  statement  In  Mazzlnx's  "The  Duties  of 
Man."  A  correction  of  his  overemphasis  is  contained  in 
"Human  Nature  in  Politics,"  by  Graham  Wallas.  Valu- 
able books  on  Nationality  have  been  written  by  Ramsay 
Muir  and  Holland  Rose.  Lord  Acton's  essay  on  Na- 
tionality in  his  "The  History  of  Freedom  and  Other 
Essays"  should  be  consulted.  He  shows  the  defects  of  the 
nation-State. 

On  the  American  aspects  of  nationality,  Emile  Hovelaque 
and  Alfred  Zimmern  are  the  two  visitors  who  have  shown 
clear  recognition  of  the  spiritual  weakness  of  our  coun- 
try, and  at  the  same  time  have  pushed  through  to  the 
cause,  and  so  offered  opportunity  for  amendment.  Hove- 
laque's  articles  in  the  Revue  de  Paris  of  the  spring  of 
1916  I  have  summarized  in  the  chapter  on  the  Middle 
West.  From  Zimmern  I  have  jammed  together  In  what 
follows  isolated  sentences  of  various  essays.  This  is  of 
course  unfair  to  his  thought,  but  will  serve  to  stimulate 
the  reader's  interest  In  looking  up  the  essays  themselves. 

"There  is  to-day  no  American  nation.  America  consists 
at  present  of  a  congeries  of  nations  who  happen  to  be 
united  under  a  common  federal  government.  America  Is 
not  a  melting  pot.  It  does  not  assimilate  its  aliens.  It 
Is  the  old  old  story  of  the  conflict  between  human  in- 
stincts and  social  institutions.  The  human  soul  can  strike 
no  roots  In  the  America  of  to-day.  I  watched  the  work- 
ings of  that  ruthless  economic  process  sometimes  described 
as  'the  miracle  of  assimilation.'  I  watched  the  steam-roller 
of  American  Industrialism — so  much  more  terrible  to  me 
In  Its  consequences  than  Prussian  or  Magyar  tyranny — 
grinding  out  the  spiritual  life  of  the  immigrant  prole- 
tariat, turning  honest,  primitive  peasants  Into  the  helpless 


APPENDIX  331 

and  degraded  tools  of  the  Trust  magnate  and  the  Tammany 
boss.  Nowhere  in  the  world  as  in  the  United  States  have 
false  theories  of  liberty  and  education  persuaded  states- 
men on  so  large  a  scale  to  make  a  Babel  and  call  it  a 
nation." 

And  the  remedy? 

"Those  make  the  best  citizens  of  a  new  country  who, 
like  the  French  in  Canada  and  Louisiana,  or  the  Dutch 
in  South  Africa,  bear  with  them  on  their  pilgrimage,  and 
religiously  treasure  in  their  new  homes,  the  best  of  the 
spiritual  heritage  bequeathed  them  by  their  fathers." 

Alfred  Zimmern  is  the  author  of  "The  Greek  Common- 
wealth," contributor  to  the  "Round  Table,'*  and  one  of 
the  promoters  of  the  Workers  Educational  Association. 
Those  who  wish  to  get  his  full  thought  on  Nationality 
should  consult  the  pamphlet  "Education  and  the  Work- 
ing Class,"  the  volume  "International  Relationships  in  the 
Light  of  Christianity,"  and  the  Sociological  Review  for 
July,  1912,  and  October,  19 15. 

The  most  penetrating  recent  articles  on  the  American 
democracy  as  opposed  to  the  cosmopolitanism  of  the  melt- 
ing pot  were  written  by  Horace  M.  Kallen  in  issues  of 
the  New  York  Nation  of  February,  1915.  Dr.  Kallen 
is  a  Jewish  pupil  of  the  late  William  James,  of  out- 
standing ability,  the  spiritual  leader  of  the  younger  genera- 
tion of  Jews.  He  has  touched  off  a  group  of  thinkers  on 
the  American  problem,  of  whom  one  is  Randolph  Bourne. 

Those  interested  in  the  interweaving  of  French  and 
early  American  history  should  read  the  book  by  Ambassador 
Jusserand,  called  "With  Americans  of  Past  and  Present 
Days." 

A  careful  investigation  of  the  myth-making  machinery 


332     OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

used  by  nations  In  war-time  is  given  by  Fernand  van 
Langenhove  in  "The  Growth  of  a  Legend" — a  study  based 
upon  the  German  accounts  of  francs-tireurs  and  "wicked 
priests"  in  Belgium.     It  is  made  up  of  German  documents. 

A  fuller  study  of  the  German  letters  and  diaries  is 
contained  in  the  pamphlets  of  Professor  Joseph  Bedier, 
the  books  of  Professor  J.  H.  Morgan,  and  the  volumes  by 
Jacques  de  Dampierre  "L'Allemagne  et  le  Droit  des  Gens" 
and  "Garnets  de  Route  de  Combattants  AUemands." 
After  an  examination  of  these  German  documents,  no 
student  will  speak  of  German  atrocities  as  "alleged."  The 
most  careful  collection  of  testimony  by  eye-witnesses  is 
that  contained  in  the  report  of  the  French  Government 
Commission,  "Rapports  et  Proces-Verbaux  D'Enquete." 
I  have  personally  examined  several  of  the  witnesses  to  this 
report.  They  are  responsible  witnesses.  Their  testimony 
is  accurately  rendered  in  the  Government  record.  I  trust 
that  some  American  of  high  responsibility,  such  as  Pro- 
fessor Stowell,  of  the  Department  of  International  Law  at 
Columbia  University,  will  make  an  exhaustive  study  of  the 
German  documents  held  by  the  French  Ministry  of  War. 

For  the  peasant  incidents  in  the  last  section  of  my  book, 
I  refer  to  the  book  by  Will  Irwin,  "The  Latin  at  War," 
as  independent  corroboration. 


II 

TO  NEUTRAL  CRITICS 

CERTAIN  points  in  my  testimony  have  been  chal- 
lenged by  persons  sitting  in  security,  three  thousand 
miles  away  from  the  invaded  country,  where  at  my 
own  cost  and  risk  I  have  patiently  gathered  the  facts  on 
which  I  have  based  my  statements. 

I  have  built  my  testimony  on  three  classes  of  evidence. 

First;  The  things  I  have  seen.  I  have  given  names, 
places  and  dates. 

Second:  The  testimony  of  eye-witnesses,  made  to  me  in 
the  presence  of  men  and  women,  well-known  in  France, 
England  and  America.  These  eye-witnesses  I  have  used  in 
precisely  the  same  way  in  which  a  case  is  built  up  in  the 
courts  of  law. 

Third:  The  diaries  and  letters  written  by  Germans  in 
which  they  describe  the  atrocities  they  have  committed.  I 
have  seen  the  originals  of  these  documents. 

It  is  noticeable  that  the  specific  fact  has  never  been 
challenged.  The  date  has  never  been  found  misplaced,  the 
place  has  never  been  confused,  the  person  has  never  been  de- 
clared non-existent.  The  denial  has  always  been  in  blanket 
form. 

The  New  York  Evening  Post  says :  After  the  spy  came 
the  invasion,  and  after  the  invasion  came  the  'steam  roller,* 

333 


334    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

flattening  out  Belgium.  This  is  all  given  in  a  general 
way." 

It  is  given  with  exact  specifications. 

Clement  Wood,  in  the  Socialist  paper,  The  Nero  York 
Call,  writes :  "This  book  attempts  more  of  a  summing  up 
of  German  offenses,  and,  being  written  to  sustain  an  opinion 
rather  than  to  give  impartially  the  facts,  correspondingly 
loses  in  interest  and  persuasiveness.  Its  usefulness  to  the 
general  reader  or  the  person  who  desires  an  unbiased  un- 
derstanding of  the  conflict  is  slight."  He  speaks  of  "the 
alleged  German  atrocities  in  Belgium." 

My  statements  do  not  deal  with  opinion  but  with  things 
seen.  Apparently  it  is  an  offense  to  take  sides  on  this  war. 
One  is  a  truthworthy  witness  if  one  has  seen  only  pic- 
turesque incidents  that  do  not  reveal  the  method  of  warfare 
practiced  by  an  invading  army.  One  is  fair-minded  only 
by  shutting  the  eyes  to  the  burned  houses  of  Melle,  Ter- 
monde  and  Lorraine,  and  the  dead  bodies  of  peasants ;  and 
by  closing  the  cars  to  the  statements  of  outraged  persons. 
One  is  judicial  only  by  defending  the  Germans  against  the 
acts  of  their  soldiers,  and  the  written  evidence  of  their  offi- 
cers and  privates. 

The  Independent  says :  "He  saw  the  wreck  of  the  con- 
vent school,  but  learned  none  of  the  sisters  had  been 
harmed." 

The  critic  selects  that  portion  of  my  testimony  on  the 
convent  school  which  relieves  the  Germans  of  the  charge  of 
rape.  As  always,  I  have  given  every  bit  of  evidence  in 
favor  of  the  Germans  that  came  my  way.  I  have  told  of 
the  individual  soldier  who  was  revolted  by  his  orders.  I 
have  published  the  diaries  of  German  soldiers  which  re- 
vealed nobility.    But  is  that  scrupulous  care  of  mine  a  jus- 


APPENDIX  335 

tificatlon  to  the  Independent  for  omitting  to  tell  the  hu- 
miliations visited  on  that  convent  school? 

My  testimony  of  bayonetted  dying  peasants  is  "credible 
in  so  far  as  no  testimony  from  the  other  side  was  obtain- 
able." 

"Mr.  Gleason  also  saw  the  ruins  of  bombarded  Belgian 
cities." 

Is  it  fair  of  the  Independent  to  be  inaccurate?  My  evi- 
dence is  not  of  bombarded  Belgian  cities.  It  is  of  Belgian 
cities,  burned  house  by  house,  with  certain  houses  spared 
where  "Do  not  burn  by  incendiary  methods"  was  chalked 
on  the  door. 

"Otherwise  his  evidence  is  at  second  or  third  hand 
mainly." 

On  the  contrary,  I  have  quoted  witnesses  whom  I  can  pro- 
duce. 

The  Times,  of  Los  Angeles,  says:  "He  is  quite  rabid. 
He  writes  with  the  frenzy  of  a  zealot." 

I  do  not  think  the  colorless  recitation  of  facts,  fortified 
by  name,  place  and  date,  is  rabid  or  frenzied. 

The  Literary  Digest  says:  "Of  the  'atrocities'  in  Bel- 
gium, we  find  reports  of  a  'friend,'  or  a  'friend's  friend,' 
or  what  'some  one  saw  or  heard.'  " 

I  have  told  what  I  myself  saw  and  heard. 

"Fair-minded  readers  will  be  inclined  to  reserve  judg- 
ment." 

But  in  the  light  cast  by  eye-witnesses  and  German  diaries, 
we  have  reserved  judgment  too  long.  Our  American  Revo- 
lution would  have  been  a  drearier  affair,  if  the  French  had 
reserved  judgment.  In  a  crisis  the  need  is  to  form  a  judg- 
ment in  time  to  make  it  tell  for  the  cause  of  justice.  Truth- 
seeking  is  a  living  function  of  the  mind. 


336    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Another  critic  says:  "By  careful  reading  one  sees  that, 
while  it  pretends  to  give  real  evidence,  there  isn't  any  that 
is  real  except  where  not  essential.  Mr.  Gleason  attempts  to 
belittle  the  stories  of  priests  inciting  girls  to  deeds  of  vio- 
lence." 

I  do  not  attempt  to  belittle  those  stories.  I  disprove 
them  on  the  evidence  given  by  German  generals,  whose 
names  I  cite.  Because  I  defend  Roman  Catholic  priests 
from  slander  does  not  mean  that  I  am  anti-Protestant.  Be- 
cause I  prove  that  Belgium  and  France  have  suffered  in- 
justice does  not  mean  that  I  am  anti-German.  I  went  over 
to  find  out  whether  Belgian  and  French  peasants,  old  men, 
women  and  children,  were  a  lawless,  murderous  mob,  or 
whether  the  German  military  had  sinned  in  burning  their 
homes  and  shooting  the  non-combatants.  Neutrals  can  not 
have  it  both  ways — either  the  peasants  were  guilty,  or  the 
German  Army  was  guilty.  I  found  it  was  the  German 
Army  that  had  sinned. 

This  critic  goes  on  to  say:  "Only  a  few  years  ago  the 
entire  world  was  shocked  by  the  horrible  atrocities  carried 
on  in  the  Congo." 

Evidently  those  atrocities  were  proved  to  his  satisfaction. 
But  was  the  case  not  established  by  the  same  process  I  have 
used — personal  observation,  documentary  proof,  and  the 
testimony  of  eye-witnesses? 

The  Post-Dispatch,  of  St.  Louis,  says :  "Gleason  in  try- 
ing to  make  out  a  strong  case  against  Germany  goes  too  far. 
He  is  too  venomous.  It  will  be  a  hard  thing  to  convince 
neutral  Americans  that  German  soldiers  maliciously  ran 
their  bayonets  through  the  backs  of  girl  children.  The 
volume  would  be  of  much  greater  historical  value  if  Glea- 


APPENDIX  337 

son  had  used  his  head  more  and  his  heart  less."  Dr. 
Hamilton,  in  The  Survey,  makes  the  same  point. 

In  my  testimony  I  detail  my  evidence,  and  they  who  deny 
it  rest  on  general  statements.  I  assure  them  it  is  not  in 
lightness  that  I  record  these  conclusions  about  the  German 
Army.  I  have  gone  into  the  zone  of  fire  to  bring  out  Ger- 
man wounded.  I  have  taken  the  same  hazards  as  thousands 
of  other  men  have  taken  to  save  German  life.  Does  venom 
act  so? 

I  find  in  these  criticisms  an  underlying  assumption,  a 
mental  attitude,  toward  war,  and  therefore  toward  facts 
about  war.  Some  of  these  periodicals  are  sincere  pacifists. 
In  the  cause  of  social  reform,  in  their  several  and  very 
different  ways,  they  have  served  the  common  good.  But 
because  they  believe  war  is  the  worst  of  all  evils,  they  as- 
sume that  both  sides  are  equally  guilty  or  equally  foolish. 
It  is  not  a  mental  attitude  which  leaves  them  open-minded. 
I  want  to  ask  them  on  what  body  of  facts  they  base  their 
criticism.  Were  they  present  in  Belgium  at  the  moment 
of  impact?  Has  the  German  Government  provided  them 
with  detailed  documentary  proof  that  in  the  villages  I  have 
mentioned,  on  the  dates  given,  the  persons  I  have  named 
were  not  burned,  were  not  bayonetted?  Have  they  exam- 
ined the  originals  of  the  German  diaries  and  found  that  I 
have  omitted  or  altered  words'?  Have  they  spent  many 
days  in  Lorraine  taking  testimony  from  cure  and  sister  and 
Mayor  and  peasant?  Has  that  testimony  shown  that  the 
destruction  and  murder  did  not  take  place?  Has  Leon 
Mil  man.  Prefect  of  Meurthe-et-Moselle,  given  them  a  state- 
ment in  which  he  retracts  what  he  said  to  me  ? 

Several  of  these  critics  happen  to  be  personal  friends.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  write  in  resentment  of  anything  they 


338    OUR  PART  IN  THE  GREAT  WAR 

say.  I  am  not  Interested  in  making  out  a  case  for  myself. 
But  I  am  very  much  interested  in  inducing  my  fellow  coun- 
trymen to  accept  the  facts  of  the  present  world  struggle. 
My  books  about  the  war  have  been  written  with  one  pur^ 
pose  only — to  bring  home  to  Americans  the  undeserved  suf- 
fering of  Belgium  and  France.  To  do  that  I  need  the  help 
of  all  men  of  good  will.  I  ask  them  not  to  break  the  force 
of  the  facts  which  I  have  patiently  collected,  by  the  care- 
lessness which  calls  systematically  burned  cities  "bom- 
barded" cities,  and  by  the  mental  attitude  which  finds  me 
"rabid,"  when  I  have  given  every  favoring  incident  to  Ger- 
man soldiers  that  I  could  find.  I  have  spent  nearly  two 
years  in  observing  the  facts  of  this  war.  Against  my  desires, 
my  pre-war  philosophy,  my  hopes  of  internationalism,  I  was 
driven  by  the  facts  to  certain  conclusions. 


AA    000  832  994    8 


